DIP 1027--String Interpolation--Final Review Discussion Thread

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On 2/5/20 4:15 AM, Johannes Loher wrote:
> On Wednesday, 5 February 2020 at 06:48:43 UTC, Arine wrote:
>>
>>     string v = i"value = $value";
>>
>> A user isn't going to expect that to be:
>>
>>     string v = ("value = %s", value);
> 
> This still boggles my mind. I know that you can simply write
> 
> string v = i"value = $value".format;
> 
> instead but this is not what anybody who already knows about string 
> interpolation from any other language will expect. It is really weird to 
> have a string syntax (i"") where the result of such an expression is not 
> actually a string (or at the very least implicitly convertible to one).
> 
> Do we really want D to be the odd one out in this case?

I suggested in the first review round [1] that we don't call this 
"string interpolation" to avoid this confusion (because everyone will 
just expect this).

But I absolutely think that this is how D should support string 
interpolation. It's just so much more beneficial than translating to an 
automatic call to format (note that this WOULD require a library to do 
it, as the compiler can't possibly know how to string-ify all parameters).

-Steve

[1] https://forum.dlang.org/post/qt8ust$26if$1@digitalmars.com