new DIP2: Const code bloat

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:37:47 -0400, Bill Baxter <wbaxter at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 7:26 AM, Leandro Lucarella<llucax at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>> Kagamin, el  9 de julio a las 09:46 me escribiste:
>>> DiP2 is here. Check it.
>>>
>>> http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?DiPs
>>> http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?DiP2
>>>
>>> ps code markup is not very nice.
>>
>> It would be very nice if you include at least the abstract in the mail,  
>> so
>> it's easier to discuss the DIP here.
>>
>> And as bearophile pointed, the DIP is missing the author. I think a DIP
>> can't be taken very seriously without an author. I think a DIP author
>> should be committed to maintain the DIP (this doesn't mean that other
>> people can't update it) and do the requested changes to make the DIP  
>> move
>> forward to its acceptance.
>>
>> As for the DIP itself, I didn't used the const system in D2 yet, so
>> I can't give a good opinion, but I think that adding a new kind of
>> pseudo-constness can be a little bloat. Of course, having to copy the  
>> same
>> code 3 times is much worse, so if nobody has a better solution for the
>> problem, I guess I can live with it =)
>
> I have to say I read the previous proposals when they were proposed
> here on the newsgroup, but when I saw the DIP just using a new keyword
> "vconst" instead of "inout" it looked soooooo much more readable to
> me.  Might just be me, but I think my brain had a hard time convincing
> my eyes that inout had anything to with const.

Yeah, when I used inout, I was sort of trying to cut off some of the "oh  
no, not another keyword" objections.  I tried my *hardest* to explicitly  
say that the keyword doesn't matter, the proposal still works with any  
keyword name, but it just doesn't work.  People latch onto the keyword  
like flies on a bikeshed covered with, um.. stuff.

I also had another alterior motive in that certain people who seemed to be  
influential with Walter liked the idea of using inout.

I really couldn't care less what the keyword is, because no matter what it  
ends up being, it is much easier to deal with than writing N copies of a  
function, especially when the code is identical.

-Steve