Array literals

[bearophile]

Andrei Alexandrescu:
> I hear you.

:-)


> For the languages I know that has always been the case: one 
> person or small group is behind each language. Except for Ada. What 
> process do you have in mind?

- I have seen that to design a language you have to take hundreds or thousands of decisions. Designing languages is hard (and I am a newbie in that job).
- Every single person has quirks, idiosyncrasies, etc, this is natural and inevitable. This for example means that everyone has several things that he/she/shi feels as "natural" or right, but they aren't for most other people.
- A community usually gives just an average idea; this average is precious because it allows to find what's more natural and intuitive, but once in a while it may lack a coherent style that just 1-3 people may have. So always following such average ideas isn't positive.
- So, while designing the feature X in a language in the most rational, intuitive and less error-prone way you have to find a compromise between following a coherent style, and choosing the most commonly appreciated/understood solution.
- I have seen Walter and you trying to design or re-design a feature X, where most people here ask to fix the feature Y (and Z) that currently is damning lot of D programmers; while few care of feature X or how it's (re)designed. In more than a year of presence in this forum I think your question to name the "top 5" was one of the few and first times that trend was inverted, asking to the community :-)
- Summing it up, I think the current way D is designed isn't the best. I think that its developing process may enjoy listening more to what the average D user wants now (and it seems they often ask for a fix in some of the design mistakes of the language). Sometimes looking for a faster horse is the right thing to do :-)


> I agree that array literals are problematic. I'll about that in another 
> thread.

- Oh, good. Maybe in some time someone will even understand why I think the current module system of D has some holes that it may be positive to fill/fix :-)
(I have discussed this topic twice in the past). I think Kirk McDonald is among the few that agrees with me :-)
- I think that fixing array literals is much higher priority than "fixing" template instantiation syntax. But on the other hand, from the last discussions it seems that the future D2 language will have a lot of differences from the current D2 language: in practice every 5 posts of yours I see a suggestion (often good!!) to change something quite basic in the way D2 syntax/semantic works :-]
- I'm sure your presence in the D community is the best thing happened to D in the last 15 months :-) In truth I have seen people in this community that has ideas often as good as yours regarding the future of D, but you seem more expert.

Bye and thank you,
bearophile