yank unary '+'?

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> Is there any good use of unary +? As an aside, Perl programs do use it 
>> occasionally for syntactic disambiguation :o).
> 
> An internet search reveals:
> 
> 1. symmetry
> 
> 2. compatibility with C and many other languages that use it
> 
> 3. used with operator overloading to convert a user defined type to its 
> preferred arithmetic representation (a cast can't know what the 
> 'preferred' type is)
> 
> 4. to create DSL languages, like Spirit, as Kenny points out
> 
> 5. to coerce default integral promotion rules (again, cast(int) won't 
> always produce the same result)
> 
> 6. to visually emphasize that a literal is positive
> 
> I say leave it in.

I am completely underwhelmed by 1-6 and have strong arguments against 
each, but "frankly, my dear" I have bigger problems than that. I have 
exactly zero valid reasons I could mention in TDPL, and that's my litmus 
test. I find the operator utterly useless. If '+' stays in, then call it 
horsetrading but the occasionally useful '^^=' must also be in.

Andrei