Automatic method overriding in sub-classes

[bitwise via Digitalmars-d]

On Saturday, 31 October 2015 at 02:39:19 UTC, Tofu Ninja wrote:
> On Friday, 30 October 2015 at 21:38:40 UTC, bitwise wrote:
>> On Thursday, 29 October 2015 at 01:14:35 UTC, Tofu Ninja wrote:
>>> On Thursday, 29 October 2015 at 00:11:06 UTC, Tofu Ninja 
>>> wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>
>>> Actually never mind, what I just said was basically auto 
>>> override for this() so its not really any different. And it 
>>> is kinda limited with some problems.
>>
>> Sorry, I'm still not clear on whether or not template static 
>> this would work for you.
>>
>> Personally, I don't need dynamic dispatch or per-instance 
>> access. For me, as long as class info is generated per class 
>> and stored statically, that would suffice. I could always have 
>> a base method look up what it needs at runtime by type name or 
>> something.
>>
>> An example would be generating a serializer for a class in 
>> template static this to be used at runtime.
>>
>>    Bit
>
> I could make it work the same way you did, but would rather a 
> solution that did not involve a AA lookup.

You're probably right. My main use case would be serialization 
which is inherently slow anyways, so I figured it wouldn't 
matter. I'm trying to think of how this proposal can be kept as 
simple as possible to maximize the chances of it being accepted, 
and I couldn't think of enough use cases to add value to the 
virtual function approach.

The more I think about it though, the more uses I come up with:

-automatic generation of toString()
-returning class specific type/serialization info
-automatic implementation of visitors!!

I don't think I have to explain the value of being able to do 
this:

void accept(auto this This)(Visitor v) {
     v.visit(this);
}

So I guess I'm back on the side of "auto override" functions. I 
would prefer a better syntax though. Maybe just "auto" like the 
example above instead of "auto override".... or maybe 
"@synthesized" in front of the function like this:

@synthesized void accept(this This)(Visitor v) {
     v.visit(this);
}

     Bit