request switch statement with common block

[JS]

On Saturday, 3 August 2013 at 21:42:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 8/3/2013 12:51 PM, JS wrote:
>> On Saturday, 3 August 2013 at 19:10:19 UTC, Andre Artus wrote:
>>> If the implementation is so obviously trivial why don't you 
>>> implement a proof
>>> of concept?
>> because I have better things to do
>
> Implying that our time is of lesser value than yours does not 
> help sell your ideas :-)

No, you guys have a vested interest in D and are the owners who 
make the final say so... All I can do is present an argument and 
watch it get shot down.

The only real solution for me is to develop my own language and 
compilers... But I neither have the time nor the intelligence to 
do so(at least to do something worthwhile).

But nonetheless, there are certain fundamental properties in 
language design. I believe that a compilers ONLY goal is to make 
life easier for the programmer. Hence "short form" is key to this 
when it does not obfuscate.

I think using the criteria that only denies features that are 
useful to only a few programmers is very short sighted.

The reason C++ is better than C is because of it's feature set. 
Stuff like i++(short form) is ONLY for convenience... yet every 
uses it! NOT because they used it before it exists(obviously) but 
because the language supported it and then people were able to 
see how useful it is(and some things take a long time.


Basically "How the hell do you know if something is going to be 
useful to programmers if the language doesn't support it"? The 
answer? You don't! But you can get a good idea if what you are 
asking for is a generalization of something.

If X is a generalization of Y and Y is used then chances are X 
will be used at some point when people are able to grasp what it 
does.

For example, what I am proposing is analogous to class 
inheritance. You have a standard base class(the current switch 
statement) and a derived class(my extension of the switch). We 
can use the derived class anywhere we use the base class(we can 
use the standard switch statement even if we have the ability to 
use the extended version).

Derivation is always good because it is backwards 
compatible(conceptually). My switch statement extension is fully 
backwards compatible with the original. Hence, in no way does it 
break current usage, so no one can get upset it broke their 
program. But it makes the language more robust, easier to 
understand in some cases(but not less in any), and is orthogonal 
to all other language features(so very little maintenance 
issues/unintended consequences).