implicit conversions to/from shared

[Kagamin via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 12 July 2016 at 14:38:27 UTC, ag0aep6g wrote:
> I'm not sure what you're saying here. Should unsafe reading and 
> writing of shared types simply be allowed and have the common 
> syntax (as it is now), and the programmer should make sure that 
> things are set up correctly?
>
> That's a reasonable stance, but it's not the one that D takes 
> towards shared when `shared int x; ++x` is deprecated.

shared only differentiates between shared and unshared data. 
Teaching people to write legit concurrent code is a different 
task. Increment of a shared variable doesn't have a compelling 
use case so whatever happens to it is not important, just storing 
shared data is more common.

> Supporting non-atomic load in atomicLoad would be weird, 
> wouldn't it? It would be opposite of what it says on the label.

The name can be different, e.g. fast load, which better reflects 
its purpose.

> Would the point be that it calls the shared postblit (unlike 
> casting shared away and then copying)? As mentioned above, I'd 
> hope that a function that does that can be written.

Postblit is a problem with casting. Performance is a problem with 
atomicLoad.