Would there be interest in a SERIOUS compile-time regex parser?

[Knud Sørensen]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:23:33 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:

> Don Clugston wrote:
>> There's a potential piece of syntax sugar that IMHO would be a killer 
>> feature. If it were possible to overload a function based on whether a 
>> parameter is a compile-time literal, or a variable, the use of template 
>> metaprogramming could become completely invisible to the user.
> 
> That is a good idea.

That put a crazy idea into my head.

disclaimer: My education is in physics not computer science, 
I have no idea of how to write a compiler so my view may be very wrong ;-)

I have previously suggested that D handle functions on compile-time
literal by making them inline and let the optimizer evaluate them. 
 
Would it be possible to combine the template-engine and the optimizer
such that one of them could be refactored away ??