An inconvenient truth

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

KennyTM~ wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> Dave wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Anyhow, this segment of the discussion is somewhat orthogonal to the 
>>>> rest of it as I think we all agree a Unicode notation will be an 
>>>> alternative, not an exclusive choice for template instantiations.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Alternative? That's really what we need; a different group of symbols 
>>> that denote exactly the same thing, in Unicode no less <g>
>>>
>>> This whole discussion is getting goofy.
>>>
>>> Imagine a code maintainer who has a hard enough time grasping what 
>>> the template code is doing, much less having to slog through code 
>>> where the original developer(s) decided to use the Unicode 
>>> "alternative" depending on what day of the week it was.
>>>
>>> Beautiful!
>>>
>>> Let's all step back for a second here, and then just grant that 
>>> Walter's original idea is good enough and move on to more important 
>>> issues.
>>>
>>> It took me all of, oh, 5 seconds to look at some D template examples 
>>> to figure out what was going on and start emulating it with a "Hello 
>>> D Template World" of my own for a little practice. So I think the 
>>> notion that new users are going to eschew D or D templates based on 
>>> the !() syntax is just plain wrong, especially since somehow the 
>>> discussion has now changed to a Unicode Alternative (which, BTW, 
>>> would only make it harder on new users).
>>
>> You'd be amazed. I personally know two guys - awesome hackers - who 
>> wouldn't touch Eiffel in part because it introduces comments with 
>> "--". Not only that, but for one of them that was all the example he 
>> had to get to never even look at Eiffel. In fact I think this anecdote 
>> will start the introduction of TDPL. I think it's very instructive 
>> with regard to how much people care about syntax, and in what 
>> arbitrary ways.
>>
>> Andrei
> 
> Why no one says this when “enum foo = 1;” was introduced. -__-"

Use of fancy quotes noted :o).

Andrei