October 09, 2008
Hello Andrei,

<snip>

> This is pointing at some being born into royalty while others' good
> work is under-compensated. Well in a way I'm glad you bring this up.
> One thing that has caused and is causing an amount of stir and
> occasional irritation is the perception that I came out of nowhere and
> captured Walter's attention effortlessly. The reality is that being
> neighbors with Walter was part of the mix, but the prosaic bulk of it
> is that Walter cared only because of my previous and ongoing 99%
> transpiration. For better or worse, this state of affairs makes it
> that whatever I say is perceived as much more intense, imposing,
> controversial, quirky, or arrogant, than it is, and therefore much
> more scrutinized and criticized. This reaction is entirely
> understandable, and I'm still thinking of ways to assuage it. In the
> meantime it's costing me time because I feel obligated to answer the
> many replies to my posts.


Anderi, I think you have a good grasp of the complexity of the situation here, and I think (or is it believe ;) ) you are doing a fine job, if not being a little too accomodating (in terms of trying to respond to everyone): I would have collapsed of exhaustion long ago if I were in your shoes.

Anyway, keep up the good work.  I think the general D/Walter relationship picture will become clearer the longer your participate.  It does seem that D is taking a turn for the better again.

-JJR


October 09, 2008
Benji Smith wrote:
> Simen Kjaeraas wrote:
>> On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:02:18 +0200, Simen Kjaeraas <simen.kjaras@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:39:29 +0200, Benji Smith <dlanguage@benjismith.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>>> One morning I woke up with the sudden realization of what the problem was: the shouting.
>>>>
>>>> Here's my (nutty) opinion:
>>>>
>>>> Neither the "!" nor the "." really want to be there. I think the language really *wants* to be using a bare set of parens for templates. Because the language actually wants templates and functions to converge.
>>>>
>>>> Instead of a special-case syntax for templates, and a set of special rules for CTFE, and a whole set of parallel "static" statements (if, else, foreach) and a special compile-type-only type construct (tuples), just let D be D, either at runtime or compile type.
>>>>
>>>> If a function could return a Type, and if that type could be used in a Type Constructor, then you'd have all the magic template sauce you'd need, and templates could happily converge themselves with regular functions.
>>>>
>>>> Hey! I told you it was going to be nutty!!!
>>>>
>>>> <g>
>>>>
>>>> --benji
>>>
>>> That would only work for templated functions, though. What about templated types?
>>>
>>
>> Forget I ever let my ass do the thinking. I'd really like to see how this would look, but I feel it'd make for uglier syntax.
> 
> I don't really know how it would work, but the syntax is easy to imagine:
> 
>    Type Dictionary = HashMap(char[], char[]);
>    Dictionary d = new Dictionary();
> 
> In this case, HashMap is just a function (executable at compile-time through CTFE), which returns a type. Once the type has been returned, objects of that type can be instantiated.
> 
> This idea first occurred to me when CTFE was introduced. I thought to myself "if we can have compile-time function exectuion", why can't we also have "runtime template instantiation"? Why is it only possible to define a new type (or to choose which type) at compile time?
> 
> In languages like Ruby, you can attach new methods to an object at runtime. In .NET, you can generate, compile, and load new bytecode instructions on the fly.
> 
> It's hard to think of cases where you'd really want to construct a new type at runtime. But maybe....automatically generating a library of types by querying a database schema?

It makes sense to construct a new type in CTFE code, though.
That would allow a template to be instantiated inside a CTFE function.
Currently, a template can pass its arguments into a CTFE function, but a CTFE function cannot pass its arguments to a template.
October 09, 2008
John Reimer wrote:
> Hello Andrei,
> 
> <snip>
> 
>> This is pointing at some being born into royalty while others' good
>> work is under-compensated. Well in a way I'm glad you bring this up.
>> One thing that has caused and is causing an amount of stir and
>> occasional irritation is the perception that I came out of nowhere and
>> captured Walter's attention effortlessly. The reality is that being
>> neighbors with Walter was part of the mix, but the prosaic bulk of it
>> is that Walter cared only because of my previous and ongoing 99%
>> transpiration. For better or worse, this state of affairs makes it
>> that whatever I say is perceived as much more intense, imposing,
>> controversial, quirky, or arrogant, than it is, and therefore much
>> more scrutinized and criticized. This reaction is entirely
>> understandable, and I'm still thinking of ways to assuage it. In the
>> meantime it's costing me time because I feel obligated to answer the
>> many replies to my posts.
> 
> 
> Anderi, I think you have a good grasp of the complexity of the situation here, and I think (or is it believe ;) ) you are doing a fine job, if not being a little too accomodating (in terms of trying to respond to everyone): I would have collapsed of exhaustion long ago if I were in your shoes.
> 
> Anyway, keep up the good work.  I think the general D/Walter relationship picture will become clearer the longer your participate.  It does seem that D is taking a turn for the better again.
> 
> -JJR

Thank you!

Andrei
October 09, 2008
"Andrei Alexandrescu" wrote
> John Reimer wrote:
>> Hello Andrei,
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> This is pointing at some being born into royalty while others' good work is under-compensated. Well in a way I'm glad you bring this up. One thing that has caused and is causing an amount of stir and occasional irritation is the perception that I came out of nowhere and captured Walter's attention effortlessly. The reality is that being neighbors with Walter was part of the mix, but the prosaic bulk of it is that Walter cared only because of my previous and ongoing 99% transpiration. For better or worse, this state of affairs makes it that whatever I say is perceived as much more intense, imposing, controversial, quirky, or arrogant, than it is, and therefore much more scrutinized and criticized. This reaction is entirely understandable, and I'm still thinking of ways to assuage it. In the meantime it's costing me time because I feel obligated to answer the many replies to my posts.
>>
>>
>> Anderi, I think you have a good grasp of the complexity of the situation here, and I think (or is it believe ;) ) you are doing a fine job, if not being a little too accomodating (in terms of trying to respond to everyone): I would have collapsed of exhaustion long ago if I were in your shoes.
>>
>> Anyway, keep up the good work.  I think the general D/Walter relationship picture will become clearer the longer your participate.  It does seem that D is taking a turn for the better again.
>>
>> -JJR
>
> Thank you!
>
> Andrei

I'd also like to thank you Andrei.  Although we don't see eye to eye on every issue, I think what you have brought to the table in many areas is very good.  That gets overlooked, especially by me, because your ideas are mostly in Phobos, which I don't use.  But I agree with most of your ideas.

If I disagree with you it's mostly because I really do disagree, not because I perceive that your ideas automatically make it into D without question from Walter.

Just some constructive criticism, it would have been a lot less agitating if you had stated in your original post:

Background: Walter has allowed ".()" as an alternative to "!()" for template argument specifications in the next version of D2 as a trial to see if people like it better.

Your original statement implied that it was a fact everyone hated !(), and implied that Walter had already blessed the change for D2.  This was the point I think that set me off at least.

-Steve


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