Pow operator precedence

[bearophile]

Don:

> Originally it worked the other way, but bearophile complained about it,
> so it got changed to this way <g>.

If I port Python code to D I prefer the current design. I have opened this thread to see if there are ways to mitigate some of the future problems caused by that :-)

Of my past design decisions about D I regret of suggesting Walter the name "immutable". Its meaning is very clear and it's the correct word, but it's a bit too much long to type, and I am using it often :-| (but less often than const, fortunately). Maybe "imm" or "immu" was better :-)

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Manu:

> What I wonder is why this operator is necessary at all?

It's not necessary, like most other features in a language, like for loops. But it's handy and very useful, I am now using one power operator about every 40 or 50 lines of D2 code.

Instead of writing:
result = (complex expression) * (complex expression);

Or:

const aux = complex expression;
result = aux * aux;

You write:

result = (complex expression) ^^ 2;

And it gets better with cubes.

I think ^^ operator is currently lacking one overload still, it's discussed a bit in one of the Bugzilla answers written by Don, I think regarding BigInts.

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Mail Mantis:

> Maybe it would be good to always require explicit parenthesis in such expressions?

Is this wise and good?

Bye,
bearophile