shouting versus dotting

[Michel Fortin]

On 2008-10-05 22:23:16 -0400, Michel Fortin <michel.fortin at michelf.com> said:

> Well, not so sure about that: I'm pretty sure it's needed for 
> disambiguation too. Let's say you have:
> 
> 	void foo(int x)();
> 	void foo(T)(T x);
> 
> 	foo(5);
> 
> Is foo(5) a the same as foo!(5), or does it call foo!(int).foo(5) ? 
> Under the current rules, it's the second (you can write foo!(5) to call 
> the first). If you allow templates to be instanciated without the "!", 
> then I guess both will match and you'll have ambiguity.
> 
> If you could avoid having sets of parameters, one for the function and 
> one for the template, then you could get rid of the "!" in a snap...

Or... we could just disallow having both at the same time, just like 
you can't have two functions with the same arguments. A call to foo(5) 
would be ambigous in the above situation, plain and simple. Is this 
reasonable?

We could still disambiguate using:

	foo!(5);

and:

	foo(int)(5);

In this context, the ! becomes the "force this to be template 
arguments" operator, or the "do not deduce template arguments, I'll 
provide them" operator.

Or we could just forget ! completely and leave the first one impossible 
to disambiguate.

Which makes me think that it's sad we can't write the second as:

	foo(int, 5);

I'd be much nicer to the eye.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/