Unofficial wish list status.(Jul 2008)

[Sean Kelly]

Don wrote:
> Sean Kelly wrote:
>>> so wut is that stuff u want in d. u haven't even tried d2 so it loox 
>>> like u r interested more in bitchin' than in making real
>> suggestions. now seriously. speak up. what is it that u as a member of 
>> the community wanna say and walter doesn't
>> listen.
>>
>> I've tried D2.  I've read the spec as well.  I simply don't like it.  
> 
> By D2, I imagine you just mean "the const system"?

No.  Pretty much all of D2 actually, if I wanted to pick nits.  But the 
const system is what I have the greatest distaste for from a functional 
perspective.

> (Most of the other things in D2 seem to have been very popular; if D2- 
> without-const was released, I reckon most of the community would start 
> using it).

I'd certainly be more open to giving it a shot, particularly since I 
could then use it with few if any modifications to my code.

> It seems to me that the view of the community is "We though we wanted 
> const. But now that we've seen what const involves, we don't want it.".

Personally, after spending some time with D I didn't miss const in the 
least.  But perhaps more importantly, I trusted that if D ever got a 
const system it would be something that matched the simplicity and 
elegance of the rest of the language.  Unfortunately, I don't feel that 
this is the case with the current design.

> At the very least, it's a public relations disaster from the point of 
> view of the language designers. They are assuming that with more time 
> and education, the legitimate complaints about first const system will 
> be forgotten, and the const system will be embraced by the community.
> But there is a very big risk here -- what if it is NOT eventually 
> accepted? What if the community concensus remains that const is just too 
> complicated, without enough benefit? And the language designers remain 
> steadfastly devoted to const? That's a catastrophic scenario, and 
> unfortunately not unlikely.

I honestly can't say whether I'll ever "come around" and decide I like 
D2, but so far this seems unlikely.  But what does this mean in the 
long-term?  None of the alternatives I've considered seem terribly 
appealing.


Sean