Just where has this language gone wrong?

[Ali Çehreli]

On 07/19/2012 08:03 AM, Petr Janda wrote:
 >> It's just syntax. Eliminating syntax noise is fine. Code should look
 >> like what it does.
 >
 > Not if "eliminating noise" equals to making things harder to understand.
 >
 > When you say (int x) { return x; } it's clear about what it is, a
 > _function_ without name.

Others beat me to it but the anonymous function can be written more 
completely as

   function string(int x) { return x.to!string(); }

(Or 'delegate' depending on the situation.)

Allow me to add a take(..., 2) to the entire expression, which is to me 
the strongest reason why UFCS can be great:

     writeln(take(map!(function string(int x) { return x.to!string(); 
})(uniq(sort([5, 3, 5, 6, 8]))), 2));

The problem is, the 2 is related to take() but they are too far apart 
above. UFCS puts them together:

   a_long_expression.take(2)

I don't like UFCS everywhere but it is very helpful in many cases.

Ali