Are iterators and ranges going to co-exist?

[Walter Bright]

Peter Alexander wrote:
> == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound2 at digitalmars.com)'s article
>> If some algorithms used ranges and others used iterators, the
> poor programmer
>> would find himself then obliged to implement both interfaces for
> each container.
> 
> This makes no sense.
> 
> I don't understand why you see ranges and iterators as conflicting
> concepts. The cursors/iterators are for referring to individual
> elements, and ranges are for specifying iterations over a sequence.

Right, so the container programmer is obliged to implement both.


> There aren't two competing interfaces here. If your interface
> requires a range of elements, you use a range. If it only needs a
> single element, you use a cursor.

The algorithm is the one doing the requiring, not the container. So, if 
there are standard algorithms some of which require ranges and others 
that require interfaces, the container implementor is obliged to provide 
both.


>>> All I would like to see is some way to generically point to a
>>> single element in a range.
>> range[0] ?
> That only works on arrays, therefore it is not generic.

Any range can provide a [0] interface.


>> There is the massive unsafeness of using iterators. We'd like
> the whole of the
>> algorithms to be guaranteed memory safe, and that cannot happen
> with iterators.
>> Being able to statically guarantee memory safety is a huge deal,
> and the larger
>> a program is and the larger the team working on it, the more
> this matters.
> 
> The iterators would not need to be used for iterations.

Perhaps calling them iterators, then, is a source of confusion!