Alias Expressions

[Paul D. Anderson]

On Monday, 23 April 2012 at 14:53:38 UTC, Eldar Insafutdinov 
wrote:
> Which brings us to an interesting point that alias and enum
> should be brought together:
>
>     alias x = 1;
>     alias y = int;
>
> should replace current
>
>     enum x = 1;
>     alias int y;
>
> respectively. This is makes it a consistent syntax and behavior
> for alias declarations(no reverse order compared to normal
> assignments which is a legacy of C's typedef) and also fixes 
> enum
> storage class which name is not relevant anymore.

+1, but I know this has been brought up before. And there's zero 
chance it will happen if it doesn't also allow earlier (C/C++/D) 
usage.

IMHO, using "enum" as a keyword for declaring constants is 
confusing and is a wart on an otherwise elegant* language. I know 
that the reason it is used is because under the covers constant 
declarations and enums are the same thing. But this is a classic 
case of leaving the human interface up to the engineers. Not 
everyone (and, in this case, hardly anyone) has the background to 
see that.

*Elegance is, of course, highly subjective. And I know that there 
are other cases of problematic syntax. It just seems to me that 
replacing "enum" is almost painless. (Not replacing, exactly -- 
"enum" should still work. But there should be an alternative 
keyword. Way back when this was first brought up there were 
several keywords proposed but none were entirely satisfactory, so 
we kind of settled for "enum".)

It makes me want to use:

     alias enum constant;

Paul