syntax sugar: std.path::buildPath instead of from!"std.path".buildPath

[bachmeier via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 14 February 2017 at 16:25:17 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
> Range remove
> (SwapStrategy s = SwapStrategy.stable, Range, Offset...)
> (Range range, Offset offset)
> if (s != SwapStrategy.stable
>     && isBidirectionalRange!Range
>     && hasLvalueElements!Range
>     && hasLength!Range
>     && Offset.length >= 1);

[...]

> My recollection is past discussions got stalled because the 
> approach is combinatorially bankrupt. How would one express the 
> constraints of the functions above with simple named 
> constraints? (Not rhetorical; please do provide an example if 
> possible.) Before long there is an explosion in names 
> ("BidirectionalWithLvalueElementsAndLength", ...). This is what 
> has buried not one, but two concepts proposals for C++, leading 
> to the current Concepts Lite proposal. I haven't followed that 
> lately but I remember it combines an engineering effort to 
> reduce the number of names introduced (for the standard library 
> only, which is a limitation) with adding support to Boolean 
> logic (surprise, surprise) to the feature (see 
> http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2015/n4377.pdf), the most recent proposal, which was rejected for C++17. Over time, C++ concepts have moved from the broken combinatorially-bankrupt form slowly toward D's Boolean constraints (just with a gratuitously awkward notation). I presume they will be merged into the language when they'll have capabilities comparable to D's system.
>
> The question is, given this experience, do we want to move the 
> opposite direction?

I am not familiar with all of the past discussion of this issue, 
but something that I have wondered is why we can't do something 
like

alias fooConstraint = (s != SwapStrategy.stable
   && isBidirectionalRange!Range
   && hasLvalueElements!Range
   && hasLength!Range
   && Offset.length >= 1);

Range remove
   (SwapStrategy s = SwapStrategy.stable, Range, Offset...)
   (Range range, Offset offset) if fooConstraint;