dropping parentheses on template instantiation

[Steven Schveighoffer]

"Andrei Alexandrescu" wrote
>I just realized something different. After making an informal review of 
>some code, I saw that a large percentage of template instantiations only 
>need ONE argument.
>
> This makes me think, with the old "!" notation, parentheses could be 
> dropped entirely without prejudice:
>
> auto covariance = Matrix!real(n, n);
> auto normalized = SparseVector!double(n);
>
> and so on.
>
> To the unbridled joy of the enemies of the Sad Pirate, the dot won't work 
> for template instantiation because without the parentheses it DOES 
> engender ambiguity.
>
> Now say we take the following route:
>
> 1) We find something different from shouting
>
> 2) We drop the parentheses for 1 argument
>
> That sounds like a possible winner. In this case the "#" becomes 
> considerably more attractive, in fact very attractive exactly because it 
> looks unlike any letter:
>
> auto covariance = Matrix#real(n, n);
> auto normalized = SparseVector#double(n);
>
> Ideas?

Not loving the missing parens.  Also I still like ! more than #.

I guess this is off topic, but aren't there more important problems to solve 
with the D language?  I appreciate that you work with templates so much, but 
to change all of this based on a non-popular subjective opinion, without any 
technical advantage seems like a waste of resources and time (indeed, I feel 
many minutes of my life have been lost on this thread).  I feel like I must 
respond for my vote to be counted, but this seems like a very unimportant, 
very specific bicycle shed color.

Like Jarrett, I believe there's probably not much I can do about it, since 
you have your mind so tightly gripped on this shouting thing that it will 
probably be changed in spite of all the resistance to it.

-Steve