Top 5

[Jarrett Billingsley]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 2:24 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu
<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
> Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Benji Smith <dlanguage at benjismith.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>> new T[x] is a brain-dead syntax that I wish Walter hadn't imported in
>>>> the
>>>> first place.
>>>
>>> Really? I think it's very valuable.
>>>
>>> The "new T[x]" syntax lets you construct an array as an RValue. Without
>>> that
>>> syntax, you have to declare an array before using it.
>>
>> No, what he's getting at is that "new T[x]" does not mean "allocate a
>> statically-sized array", it means "allocate a dynamically-sized
>> array".  "new T" for any T should mean "allocate a T", not "allocate
>> something that's kind of close to a T."
>>
>> What Andrei is implying, then is that for dynamic arrays, we should
>> have to use the (already-legal) "new T[](n)" form, and "new T[x]"
>> would mean to allocate a statically-sized array on the heap.
>
> Well yah but I think this will confuse people coming from C++. I just wish
> new was abolished entirely:
>
> struct S {}
> auto a = S();
> auto b = Object();
> auto c = char[](15);
> auto d = char[15]();
>
> So in general Type followed by "(" ...optional arguments... ")" yields a
> value.

I like that, but then you can't distinguish between heap and stack
structs, and static opCall on classes is also taken (though that's not
too big a deal).