DIP 1027---String Interpolation---Community Review Round 1

[Robert burner Schadek]

On Wednesday, 11 December 2019 at 19:34:01 UTC, Patrick Schluter 
wrote:
>
> So you complexified your code because of a restriction of the 
> language.

Not at all, before I was trying to do to much.
With multiple format calls, I made the code boring
and easy to follow.
>
>>
>> Not being able to use * will stop me using this feature in 
>> many places.
>>
>>
>> The rationale about "missing arguments, wrong format 
>> specifier,... " Is a mute point IMO. format!"%d"(13.37) does
>
> MOOT not mute
>
>> the same thing already without any language change.
>> I thought the idea was not to introduce language changes if a 
>> library solution can do most of it already.
>> I find that the readability argument is highly subjective.
>
> It is but it is also true that from more than 4 parameters in a 
> format string it gets more and more noisy.

True, so you would split up the code, right!?
If both format styles don't work with more than x arguments,
why do I need to styles to not get the work done.
One is enough to shoot myself in the foot, isn't it.

>
>> The first part of the rationale is, IHO,
>> already pointing to the solution. Short strings are easy to 
>> manage.
>> So let's promote short strings in
>> combination with format!"%s" and
>> output ranges.
>>
>> How will this feature work at CT.
>> Format doesn't even work completely at CT.
>
> It's a problem with format and is perpendicular to this DIP, 
> i.e. if this DIP is adopted or not, it will not change anything 
> to the issues of format.

Why do we need it then?

>
>>
>> I know this goes a bit off topic,
>> but IMO this is a feature that is wanted,
>> because other languages have it.
>> And we want to say we have it too.
>
> May be sometimes it is good to look why certain features are 
> spreading like wildfire. C format specifiers were a regression 
> compared to what was available at that time (in Pascal or even 
> Cobol), but as C had so much other things to it, people tended 
> to accept the strange and ugly printf formatting, but it's 
> clear that i was universally loathed. That's why C++ tried this 
> worse shift syntax and other languages tried other solutions.
> It is not because we in the end managed to get used to the 
> outdated and dangerous printf format that it is good in the 
> first place.
> This DIP is simple enough that it is a good candidate imho to 
> be tried.
format!""() is not dangerous, if it is please show me why, I
use it all over the place.
I'm also not sure why it is outdated, format is very flexible
and powerful, i.e. array formatting is just awesome.