opEquals/opCmp returning other types

[Brian Palmer]

On Wednesday, 21 March 2012 at 11:05:41 UTC, Don Clugston wrote:

> I don't think this is EVER what you really want.
> I believe that if you think you want this feature, 100% of the 
> time, what you really want is a syntax tree of the entire 
> expression. That is, either you want ">" to be a comparison, 
> and "+" to be an addition, OR you want a syntax tree.

Well yes, the whole point is to build up a syntax tree that can 
be manipulated before being outputted as a raw sql string. The 
operator overloading is a convenient way to do that, that has 
turned out to be intuitive and easy for developers to use in many 
other DSLs. To say that's not EVER what you really want seems a 
bit silly, considering all the libraries in other languages that 
utilize this technique.

That said, if this isn't the D way, it's not the D way, I'm 
certainly not going to try and shoe-horn it in based on undefined 
behavior or something.