Feedback Thread: DIP 1036--Formatted String Tuple Literals--Community Review Round 1

[Walter Bright]

Under "Wrong-use in unrelated function" it says:

--------
     Window createWindow(string title, int width = 0, int height = 0);

A user has some code that calls it like so:

     import std.conv;
     auto window = createWindow("Process debugger " ~ to!string(pid));

A new version of the compiler is released and the user, eager to try D's new 
string interpolation feature, rewrites that code as would be common in many 
other languages:

     auto window = createWindow(i"Process debugger $pid");

This would compile without error, but would not do what the user intended.
----------

This is indeed correct, but I take issue with "as would be common in many other 
languages". Because of D's close relationship with C, it would be a fair 
statement to compare with C. But C doesn't have string interpolation. It is 
impossible to constrain D based on what people expect from "many other languages".

D should do what is best for D, not what is best for C#, Forth, or Haskell. It 
is not unreasonable to expect people to at least glance at the instructions 
before assuming D is just like Language X. If they don't (and we're all guilty 
of that) then they get to debug it, like first noticing that the window title 
reads "Process debugger %s", which is not disastrous.

#DIP1038 needs a much better rationale as to why it should be preferred over 
#DIP1027.

(On a related note, I propose that default arguments are an overused feature, 
and should raise an eyebrow when used. There are many other inadvertent problems 
one can run into with careless use of it.)