shouting versus dotting

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Don wrote:
> Janderson wrote:
>>
>> Personally I don't think that we should just change the symbol ! to . 
>> because it will break a load of libraries for purely an ascetic 
>> change.  Its difficult to argue that . is better then ! as it depends 
>> on the person reading the code.  However if a template change allows 
>> for more functionality then it might be worth considering.
>>
>> Anyway extending a previous suggestion.  What about using ;?
>>
>> Foo(int T, alias X; T val, X val2);
>>
>>
>> One clash I can think of is that it might get mixup with a for loop, 
>> however I imagine that's easily detectable.  Also its slightly harder 
>> to make a distinction between the template args and the value however 
>> on the positive side its less typing.
>>
>> -Joel
> 
> This is the first suggestion which really interests me. It's really 
> short, and there is some precedent for the use of ; as a separator from 
> for/foreach.
> 
> But what do you do for non-function templates, which is really the 
> problem case? I think you end up with a bunch of ;);), which maybe looks 
> a bit odd.
> 
> auto v = new Vector!(Stack!(Tuple!(Positive!(real), Matrix!(real))))(3, 
> 3));
> 
> becomes:
> auto v = new Vector(Stack(Tuple(Positive(real), Matrix(real;););); 3, 3);

It does look winky though :o).

Andrei