null references redux + Looney Tunes

[bearophile]

Andrei Alexandrescu:

>please name five remarkable complex literals.<

I agree that having a syntax is often not necessary (but it may be handy).
Complex literals in a program can be unremarkable too, they can be arguments of complex functions, integration intervals, default values that replace missing argument inputs, etc.


> That's not opBool, it's opIf. Testing with if does not mean conversion 
> to bool and then testing the bool.

opIf sounds strange :-) Why don't you like the idea of the implicit conversion to bool followed by the testing of the bool? (someone may have already answered a similar question, please bear with me).
(Python has such standard method, as I have described (its name is diffeernt), while C# has two methods for true and falseness of an object/struct).


> I'd love to hear more about that. I've asked several times about it and 
> never got a clear answer.

Probably you have to ask to people that use complex numbers heavily, like in refined numerical simulations. Do you know some researcher at the university? A numerical physicist or teacher of numeric computation may be fine. If you ask to normal programmers they probably will not give you a good answer. To design certain language features you need experts :-)

Bye,
bearophile