Copy constructor in D. Why it is necessary to have it.

[Sean Kelly]

bearophile wrote:
> Walter Bright:
>> We've been informally calling it "deepdup". The advantage of that is it 
>> is fairly hard to misinterpret. Nobody liked my ".dupofearl" idea.
> 
> I agree that given the "dup", then then meaning of "deepdup" can be understood much better than "clone".

Everyone has a different opinion :-)

> On the other hand there are some name changes that can improve D2:
> 1) invariant  =>  immutable

Seconded.

> 2) .length  =>  .size

No.  To me, 'size' should return the number of bytes of something, not 
the number of elements.  'length' is appropriate for what's being returned.

> 3) .dup  =>  .copy

.dup is fine as is, and I think it should always perform a deep copy. 
With D going the direction it is, shallow copies are of limited use and 
can therefore be called .shallow or something.

> 4) .deepdup  =>  deepcopy

Invalid, assuming #3 above.


Sean