Discussion Thread: DIP 1036--String Interpolation Tuple Literals--Community Review Round 2

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 2/2/21 1:22 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 1/31/2021 3:04 AM, claptrap wrote:
>> Why is "working with printf" so important?
> 
> It's a canary. printf has a very simple interface, and if string 
> interpolation doesn't work for simple cases, it is indicative of 
> complexity problems.

To me this sounds like the wrong litmus test.

printf: separate format from data

interpolation: mix format with data

It doesn't seem to me at all that the first thing I'd want to do with 
interpolated strings is to contort them into a use of printf.

> Along with, of course, everybody uses printf and printf-style functions 
> (dmd has many), and writef also uses a printf-style format.
> 
> I emphasize that #DIP1027 knows nothing about printf or its formats, 
> other than having the default format be `%s`. The default can, of 
> course, be overridden.
> 
> Again, DIP1027 KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT PRINTF OR ITS FORMATS.

This is good. We'd do good to keep printf out of the interpolation 
discussion.

CODE GENERATION IS WHERE IT'S AT.