Higher level built-in strings

[Walter Bright]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:29:43 -0400, Walter Bright 
> <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>> It's a D1 feature, and has been there since nearly the beginning.
> 
> Since when did we care about D1 compatibility?

We care about incompatibilities that silently break code.


> const, inout, array appending, final, typeof(string), TLS globals just 
> to name a few...
> 
> If you expect D1 code to compile fine and run on D2, you are deluding 
> yourself.

No argument there, but we do try to avoid silent breakage.


> The worst that happens is that code starts using dchar instead of char, 
> and either a compiler error occurs and it's fixed simply by doing:
> 
> foreach(char c; str)
> 
> or it compiles fine because the type is never explicitly stated, and 
> what's the big deal there?  The code just becomes more utf compatible 
> for free :)

I don't think it's necessarily true that the user really wanted the decoded 
character rather than the byte, or even that wanting the decoded character is 
more likely to be desired.