Remove complex and imaginary types?

[renoX]

Robert Fraser Wrote:

> Oskar Linde wrote:
> > Walter Bright wrote:
> >> The issue comes up now and then about why have complex and imaginary 
> >> types, rather than using structs? All but one of the advantages of 
> >> having them be core types can be addressed with advancing compiler 
> >> technology. Getting rid of them will release 6 keywords, and make the 
> >> core language simpler. Given the increasing complexity of D, this will 
> >> help.
> >>
> >> The remaining advantage is that of imaginary literals, i.e. the i 
> >> postfix:
> >>
> >>     3 + 5i
> >>
> >> Assuming we solve the literal problem, existing code would only need 
> >> to add:
> >>
> >>     import std.complex;
> >>
> >> to acquire complex and imaginary types.
> > 
> > Sounds like a good idea. Complex math is probably only used in a very 
> > small subset of D code, and if most advantages of having the types built 
> > in are rendered irrelevant I see no reason not to take this opportunity 
> > to simplify the language.
> > 
> > Regarding literals, I'd say this is would be an adequate replacement for 
> > the above expression:
> > 
> >     3 + 5*i
> > 
> > And last, getting rid of the creal and ireal keywords can only be a good 
> > thing. :)
> > 
> 
> The identifier "i" is rather frequently used, so I don;t think that's a 
> good idea. I'd prefer an opPostfix or something that allows literals 
> with postfixes to be converted to different types. This would be 
> especially nice for dealing with units, i.e.:
> 
> writef("%s", toMiles(10km + 13ft));

I think that you have the right suggestion here: what's wrong about the complex is that it is a too specific mechanism, having a generic built-in postfix unit mechanism would allow complex, quaternion, unit libraries.. which is very nice.

In theory there is no difference between "cast(km)10 + cast(ft)13" and "10km + 13ft" but in practice there is a big one: the second one is much more readable!

Regards,
renoX