foo!(bar) ==> foo{bar} ==> foo[bar] (just Brackets)

[Jesse Phillips]

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:24:46 +0100, Bruno Medeiros wrote:

> Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 6:43 PM, Bruno Medeiros
>> <brunodomedeiros+spam at com.gmail> wrote:
>>> Don wrote:
>>>> Denis Koroskin wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:22:21 +0400, superdan <super at dan.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Walter Bright Wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dee Girl wrote:
>>>>>>>> I did not follow this group recent. School started. Sorry! I just
>>>>>>>> see now and please add my vote if possible. I start with D recent
>>>>>>>> and I remember beginning. foo!(bar) was not pleasant. Like forced
>>>>>>>> convention with a bad char. And friends I show code never like
>>>>>>>> it. It is first thing they say why they do not like D. For me
>>>>>>>> foo{bar} better idea. Thank you, Dee Girl
>>>>>>> What do your friends think of { } ?
>>>>>> School started. Every one so busy now. But I think does not matter
>>>>>> any more ^_^
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I want to make little idea. Sorry if idea mentioned before (I did
>>>>>> not read every thread). I think we can look square brackets []. Let
>>>>>> me explain why.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Paren () is over used in C and in D. Any expression can be in ().
>>>>>> And adding () is possible in many cases. But it is not same with
>>>>>> []. For example a:(b) is ambiguous but a:[b] is not. So there are
>>>>>> many signs possible after symbol and before [. They are:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * - + = | \ / , < . > ? :
>>>> Not all of them work. Here's a few examples:
>>>>
>>>>    enum { d= 3, e = 7 }
>>>>    int [] a=[1,2];
>>>>    bool c;
>>>>    auto k=[e]; // kills =
>>>>    a ~= c?[d]:[e]; // kills ?
>>>>    int [] f = c?k:[e]; // kills :
>>>>    if (f>[e]) {}   // kills <
>>>>    if (f<[e]) {}   // kills >
>>>>    auto g = (k,[d]); // kills comma
>>>>    auto h = k~[d]; // kills ~
>>>>
>>>> Array ops will kill + - * / & | % ^
>>>> Suddenly the list looks pretty short. !@#$\.
>>>
>>> Hum, what about brackets without any prefix character at all?
>>>
>>>  Vector[int, 2] foo;
>>>  List[Vector[int, 2]] bar;
>>>  int[3] a = [1, 2, 3]; // array literal here int[int] map;
>>>  alias DenseMatrix[num] PulType;
>>>  alias SparseRowsMatrix[num, HashSparseVector] PuuType; alias
>>>  BiMap[uint, Tuple[uint, uint], BiMapOptions.lhDense] DicType; int var
>>>  = a[2]; // array indexing here
>>>
>>> Hum... doesn't look bad visually. In fact it seems to fit quite nice
>>> with how associative arrays, and even normal arrays, are declared.
>>> Hum, yes, I'm personally liking this a lot.
>>>
>>> But does it have any ambiguities? Hum, can't think of any off-hand. If
>>> an identifier appears before a bracket list, it could either be a
>>> template instantiation, or an array indexation. But the syntax of both
>>> is the same, so it doesn't need to be distinguished in the parser.
>>>
>>> Waddya think, was this discussed before?
>> 
>> Erm,
>> 
>> SomeClass[3] a; // template or array?
> 
> What about it? It doesn't matter for the parser to know if SomeClass is
> a template or array, it can just keep parsing. Its not like the "class A
> : B { }" where parsing would continue differently if B was a template
> instead of a type.

Personally, it is important that I can parse it as a template or array. I 
prefer the !() syntax, it makes it incredibly easy to find creations of a 
template.