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[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> "Andrei Alexandrescu" wrote
>>> typeof(d) == char[15]*
>> just char[15].
> 
> What is the point of that?  Why wouldn't you just say:
> 
> char[15] d;

Only uniformity. In general Type() creates an instance of Type. Easy!

>> S * pS = allocate!(S)(... optional args ...);
> 
> Ugh.  How many extra 'wrapper' functions are built into the code because of 
> this?  I suppose it probably would be inlined.

Performance is not to worry about. allocate does only a call to 
gc.allocate, the requisite initialization, and a cast. The cost of call 
to gc.allocate dwarfs the call overhead even in absence of inlining.

> If new is abolished as a keyword, couldn't we use it instead of allocate?
> 
> S * pS = new!(S)(...);

Yah. Just don't want to surprise anyone.

> The proposal makes sense, I'd be concerned that syntax like this is 
> ambiguous:
> 
> auto x = X();
> auto y = Y();
> 
> You don't know if those are value or reference types, so you don't know how 
> they are used.  As opposed to:
> 
> auto x = new X();
> auto y = Y();
> 
> Where you see that x is a reference type.
> 
> It might be more confusing to someone who cares about the value semantics.

That's a benefit in fact. Uniformity is good. Structs don't have value 
semantics unless designed to, and that means you only count on value 
semantics only when you know the type.


Andrei