I just got it! (invariant/const)

[Jason House]

Georg Wrede Wrote:

> Lionello Lunesu wrote:
> > 
> > "Jason House" <jason.james.house at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> > news:ftiuj8$mob$1 at digitalmars.com...
> > 
> >> Georg Wrede Wrote:
> >>> Simen Kjaeraas wrote:
> >>> > On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:40:37 +0200, Janice Caron wrote:
> >>>
> >>> >> You know that. I know that. Why would anyone think it strange?
> >>> >
> >>> > I think it is because invMemberFunc is invariant. Many read this as
> >>> > "will not change anything", even though it is not what it means.
> >>>
> >>> I seriously think the problem is with the phrase "invMemberFunc is
> >>> invariant".
> >>>
> >>> This leads people to think invariantness is a property of the function,
> >>> instead of it merely requiring an invariant "this".
> >>>
> >>> Maybe we should figure out another way of stating it.
> >>
> >> Is that really the best solution?  Why not have do what people nievely 
> >> think it does?  The code optimizer would benefit from that as well.
> > 
> > I agree.. And one less keyword, which, it seems, is a goal in itself.
> 
> I wasn't thinking of changing D, 

Right, but I am ;)


> I was thinking more what we should 
> *say* when we talk about invariantness and functions.

If we have to say special qualifiers every time we talk about stuff, it's a broken definition :(  The less corner cases there are, the easier it'll be to discuss, the easier it'll be to learn, and the lower the potential for compiler bugs will be...