Kinds of containers

[Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 21 October 2015 at 18:14:39 UTC, jmh530 wrote:
> On Wednesday, 21 October 2015 at 18:05:07 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
> wrote:
>>
>> However, I completely fail to understand why you'd ever want a 
>> container that was a value type. In my experience, it's very 
>> error-prone and adds no value.
>
> Are you saying there isn't a reason to use static arrays?

A static array is of a fixed size, which almost no other 
containers are. It also lives entirely on the stack, which almost 
no other containers do. If there's a container that lives 
entirely on the stack, then maybe it would make sense for it to 
be a value type, but _very_ few containers fall in that category, 
and all of the classic containers like vector, linked list, map, 
etc. have no business being value types IMHO. It's just 
error-prone. Heck, static arrays are quite error-prone thanks to 
the fact that they convert to dynamic arrays, but they do serve a 
purpose. So, maybe there are containers that fall in the same 
category, but I expect that such containers are pretty obviously 
value types and not reference types, because their nature makes 
them that way. Regardless, I don't see how it's reasonable in 
general to make a container be a value type. It's just asking for 
trouble. If there's any question at all whether a container 
should be a value type or a reference type, IMHO, it should be a 
reference type.

- Jonathan M Davis