Generality creep

[ag0aep6g]

On 28.03.19 21:05, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> This is a sign things have gotten off the rail. Assignment should be 
> accessible and have obvious semantics.

Let's get rid of RefRange.opAssign then. Then assignment of RefRange has 
obvious semantics. RefRange.opAssign is not needed for RefRange to be 
useful.

[...]
> RefRange is a cancer.
> 
> Changing all data structures and algorithms to support it is the cancer 
> going into metastasis.

Again, no one here is arguing for "changing all data structures and 
algorithms".

> We must excise the cancerous tissue.

We can cut out the bad parts, but leave the useful core of RefRange 
intact, can't we?

The useful core is: a range that wraps a pointer to another range in 
order to achieve reference semantics. Often, a pointer to a range is 
already a range, but not always. E.g., `int[]*` is not a range.