Enum literals, good? bad? what do you think?

[Walter Bright]

On 7/21/2021 8:47 PM, Mathias LANG wrote:
> What I meant was that instead of recommending our users to use `switch (value) 
> with `(EnumType)`, we could just make it the default since it's the common case 
> with enums. Unless we think that requiring the type of the enum be spelt out is 
> better.
> 
> It could add to the long list of those usability enhancements that are a 
> hallmark of D (like `_` in number literals). I personally don't mind the 
> verbosity, but I heard this complaint a few times over the years.

Ok, I see what you mean. If it was restricted to the case value expressions, 
there is merit to the idea. But suppose:

     enum A = 3, B = 4;
     switch (x) {
       case A: ...
       case B: ...
     }

there isn't much of a clue that `case A` is not `case 3`, which matters more and 
more the larger the program gets.

One thing I've learned with D is that programmers often have mental models of 
how symbol lookup is done that diverge substantially from how it actually works, 
and I've never been able to communicate how things actually work to them. 
Putting a special case in like this is pretty risky.