Why typeof(template) is void?

[Lodovico Giaretta via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Wednesday, 20 July 2016 at 05:54:41 UTC, mogu wrote:
> On Wednesday, 20 July 2016 at 01:50:37 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 20 July 2016 at 01:14:05 UTC, mogu wrote:
>>> Why S's type isn't something like `S: (T) -> S`?
>>
>> Because S isn't a type... think of a template as being like a 
>> function that returns a type.
>>
>> int foo(int) { return 0; }
>>
>> There, you wouldn't expect typeof(foo) to be int, no, 
>> typeof(foo) is a function that returns an int.
>>
>> The template is the same thing - it isn't a type, it is a 
>> template that returns a type.
>
> So it's a higher kinded type aka type class in Haskell. But D's 
> reflection cannot get enough information about template's kind. 
> Only a `void` given. It may be inconvenient in distinction 
> between an alias of template and void. The only solution AFAIK 
> is by string of the type property .stringof.

Note that void is a type, while S is not. So you can do:

assert(is(void)) // is(type) returns true
assert(!is(S))   // is(template) returns false;