[OT] What should be in a programming language?

[bearophile]

Yigal Chripun:

> D has many (sometimes very powerful) hacks that could and should be 
> replaced with a much better general solution.

Sometimes fully orthogonal designs aren't the best because they force the programmer to do too much "assembly required". A good language has to offer some handy pre-built/highlevel constructs for the most common operations, that can save lot of work. Sometimes general solutions produce slow programs, or they require a more complex/smarter/slower compiler (I need a new word there, "complexer"? Natural languages too need updates now and then).
But I agree that in few parts D can enjoy a redesign. Andrei is doing some work on this, and quite more work can be done. The "alias this" looks like a little hack too me too. A safer or more "theoretically sound" solution may be found.

Bye,
bearophile