Program size, linking matter, and static this()

[Jakob Ovrum]

On Wednesday, 21 December 2011 at 02:10:30 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 20, 2011 17:32:53 Andrei Alexandrescu 
> wrote:
>> On 12/20/11 2:58 PM, Marco Leise wrote:
>> > Am 19.12.2011, 19:08 Uhr, schrieb Walter Bright
>> > 
>> > <newshound2 at digitalmars.com>:
>> >> On 12/16/2011 2:55 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> >>> For example, in std.datetime there's "final class Clock". 
>> >>> It
>> >>> inherits
>> >>> nothing,
>> >>> and nothing can be derived from it. The comments for it 
>> >>> say it is
>> >>> merely a
>> >>> namespace. It should be a struct.
>> >> 
>> >> Or perhaps it should be in its own module.
>> > 
>> > When I first saw it I thought "That's how _Java_ goes about 
>> > free
>> > functions: Make it a class." :)
>> 
>> Same here. If I had my way I'd rethink the name of those 
>> functions.
>> Having a cutesy prefix "Clock." is hardly justifiable.
>
> It's not the only place in Phobos which uses a class as a 
> namespace. I believe that both std.process and 
> std.windows.registry are doing the same thing.
>
> In this case, it nicely group all of the functions that are 
> grabbing the time in one form or another. They're all 
> effectively grabbing the time from the system clock, so they're 
> grouped on Clock.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

Sounds like the perfect candidate for its own module.