If you could make any changes to D, what would they look like?

[Adam D Ruppe]

On Wednesday, 20 October 2021 at 10:28:35 UTC, SealabJaster wrote:
> On Wednesday, 20 October 2021 at 10:07:40 UTC, Elronnd wrote:
>> - Class instances should not be reference types
>
> Interesting opinion. So classes would essentially be structs 
> with a v-table

Well, one idea I heard last week that I don't loathe and despise 
is that classes are always *explicit* references.

class Object {}

void foo(Object* o){}

That'd be the new syntax for what we have today. But:

void foo(Object o) {} // error: cannot declare variable of class 
value type; the rule is still they're always references


One of the benefits of this is there's now a place for rebindable:


void foo(const(Object)* o) {} // const object, but you can rebind 
the reference



That const ref thing has come up for about as long as D has had 
const.


I don't really think it is worth the hassle but it is interesting 
in that it solves some old syntax worries.