shouting versus dotting

[Benji Smith]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I'd want to give it a try. How do others feel about Template{arguments}?


At first glance, I like it better than !(), especially since it saves a 
character, making nested templates much nicer:

    auto map = new Map{T[], List{MyType}}();     // not too bad
    auto map = new Map!(T[], List!(MyType))();   // not too good
    auto map = new Map<T[], List<MyType>>();     // still my favorite

It's too bad the shift operators can't be changed. Personally, I think 
the angle brackets are more valuable as a matched pair of enclosures.

We could redefine the shift operators to be:

    -->  RIGHT SHIFT
    <--  LEFT SHIFT
    -->> SIGNED RIGHT SHIFT

And then the angle brackets could be coopted for templates.

Of course, like I said before, I think it'd be especially cool if 
templates, as such, didn't exist. Instead, what if an ordinary function 
could return a Type, which could be used in a Type Constructor? 
Templates would vanish! It'd be CTFE, but for types instead of just for 
values.

--benji