Worst ideas/features in programming languages?

[max haughton]

On Monday, 11 October 2021 at 15:59:10 UTC, Atila Neves wrote:
> I'm brainstorming about what I'll talk about at DConf, and 
> during a conversation with Walter I thought it might be cool to 
> talk about:
>
> * Worst features implemented in a non-toy language
> * Worst features (in your opinion) in D
> * Features you'd like to see in D
>
> Ideas? Examples?
>
> Thanks!

__traits should've died years ago. Its continued existence shows 
some level of paralysis.

The decision to build languages as monolithic lumps of 
specification, then a compiler, also phased in it's design, while 
simple, I think will be a detriment in the post Moore's law age, 
as it makes it very irritating to use and understand the full 
muscle of the optimizer *in the right places* - and fundamentally 
limits the potential of the/a language in a now post-heterogenous 
world: you should he able to compile for a GPU as part of the 
compiler a la a trait (This is an acceptable use of the keyword, 
reflection is not).

I think D's worst feature is really a human tendency to avoid 
language solutions for things. sumtype is a good library, but it 
should be core language for example. Typecons.tuple is even less 
marginal.

My dream feature for D is a combination of static analysis, 
formal verification, and some brand of mutation testing guided by 
them (When we spoke about it last, Atila, you convinced me but it 
would take someone more dedicated than I to implement it)