Editions Ideas

[Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole]

On 17/12/2025 11:43 AM, Timon Gehr wrote:
> On 12/16/25 21:45, Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole wrote:
>>
>> On 17/12/2025 9:35 AM, Nick Treleaven wrote:
>>> On Monday, 15 December 2025 at 16:59:07 UTC, Lance Bachmeier wrote:
>>>> On Monday, 15 December 2025 at 12:26:04 UTC, Nick Treleaven wrote:
>>>>> For structs, I think there was some plan to replace it, but I never 
>>>>> saw details.
>>>>
>>>> Walter has indicated a desire to not use editions as an excuse to 
>>>> ruin the language.
>>>>
>>>> alias this with structs is very useful. There is no reason to remove 
>>>> it or make it unusable just because a few people think it can be 
>>>> dangerous. One might also argue that pointers are dangerous, but 
>>>> that's not an argument for removing them. Removal of alias this 
>>>> would make the language unusable for me.
>>>
>>> I don't know if there is a plan now to replace it, I'd guess not. I 
>>> am not aware of any reason why `alias this` should be removed (for 
>>> structs at least). If there was a replacement feature, it should be 
>>> capable of everything `alias this` can currently do IMO, so that 
>>> there would be an upgrade path.
>>>
>>> There was a project item to 'Explore a replacement for alias this':
>>> https://github.com/orgs/dlang/projects/22/views/1? 
>>> pane=issue&itemId=29572699
>>>
>>> Though that was part of a set which was closed (maybe last year).
>>
>> I have my own plans, but they'll need to be discussed next month.
>>
>> https://forum.dlang.org/post/llqcjziyurwmyhzseonm@forum.dlang.org
>>
>> We don't need alias this semantic, but we do need a fallback lookup 
>> via a method.
>>
>> Get rid of the overriding capability, and let things stay single 
>> inheritance.
> 
> D also allows multiple module imports, just use the same lookup rules 
> and disambiguation strategies.
> 
> It's a solved problem. The reason why we were not able to do this is 
> that it breaks code that relies on the ad-hoc mess that has grown over 
> the years instead. There is no need to go overboard and delete the whole 
> concept now that we got editions that allow us to solve the problem in 
> the obvious way.
> 
> Of course, we can also use different syntax. Forwarding to members is 
> useful without implicit conversion and even vice-versa.

Yeah it'll work.

My preference is to keep it simple and disambiguate from the old 
behavior but otherwise it archives the same goal.