DIP23 draft: Fixing properties redux

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:43:39 -0500, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg at gmx.com>  
wrote:

> On Tuesday, February 05, 2013 14:05:24 Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> I think the point about @safe code is moot, aren't pointers disallowed  
>> in
>> safe code anyway?
>
> Goodness no. It's pointer arithmetic which is disallowed. Pointers  
> themselves
> are perfectly safe as long as you just pass them around or dereference  
> them
> (which would include calling functions on them). For instance, the  
> result of
> in on an AA is a pointer to the object, and that's @safe.

Well, it would seem setting all kinds of extra rules on ref (in addition  
to the restrictions we have now), when pointers are more useful even in  
@safe code, will simply result in people using pointers more than ref.   
I'm not sure that's the right message, but I'm afraid that will be what it  
is.

For example, I have to use pointers for my linked list implementation in  
dcollections, because ref is forbidden to be used as a class or struct  
member (my nodes are structs because classes are too heavy).  Also, ref is  
not rebindable, whereas a pointer is.

-Steve