Fully dynamic d by opDotExp overloading

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Michel Fortin wrote:
> On 2009-04-18 22:21:50 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu 
> <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> said:
> 
>> I did, but sorry, it doesn't make sense and does nothing but continue 
>> the terrible confusion going in this thread.
> 
> Then let's try to remove some of that confusion.

Thanks for doing so. Given that my wits are spent with regard to this 
thread, I am replying out of respect for the considerable effort you 
have put in writing an explanation.

I agree that method names swallowed by opDotExp will not be exposed to 
any reflection mechanism and that that can be a drawback. But sometimes 
you don't even want to exhaustively generate all method names. In the 
Pascalize example, you wouldn't want to generate all case combinations 
of your methods. Also in the swizzle example, maybe you don't want to 
compulsively expose all of the xyzw combinations.

You completely lost me about the necessity of a standardized catch-all 
function. My view is that if you want to forward to someone else, you 
just call the runtime invoke() for the guy you want to forward to. So I 
see exactly zero need for a standardized catch-all, and a red herring in 
the discussion about the syntactic help brought about by opDotExp. Given 
the size of your latest effort to explain things, I guess it would be 
out of place for me to ask for further explanation.

Also, when a thread becomes an exchange between two people, it's a clear 
sign that that thread should be put to rest. I'm still a bit dumbfounded 
that such a minor issue has caused so much aggravation, but I guess 
odder things have happened on the Usenet.


Andrei