On Tuesday, 16 October 2012 at 17:05:14 UTC, kenji hara wrote:

> The result of my challenging.
> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/1187
>
> Kenji Hara

As far as i remember, Andrei said that it was planned and the syntax will support templates too (like C++0x template alias). So, this might not be enough.

Something like:
alias vec(T) = vector!(T, allocator);

On Tuesday, 16 October 2012 at 17:05:14 UTC, kenji hara wrote:
> The result of my challenging.
> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/1187


Respect.

On Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:32:01 +0200
"Era Scarecrow" <rtcvb32@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> alias SomeChar = char;
> alias SomeShort = short;
> alias SomeInt = int;
> alias SomeUInt = uint;
> alias SomeLong = long;
> alias SomeFloat = float;
> alias SomeDouble = double;
> uint  MaybeBroken = nutmeg;
> const SomeChar FavoriateLanguage = 'D';
> const SomeShort universeAndEverything = 42;
> const SomeInt hundredThousand = 100_000;
> const SomeUInt million = SomeInt * 10;
> const SomeLong largeNumber = SomeUInt * SomeUInt;
> const SomeFloat pi = 3.14;
> const SomeDouble pi2 = pi*pi;
> const MaybeBroken maybe= 2;
> 

Actually, that's the reason I've always preferred the idea of "alias NewSym = OldSym;"

Well, that and because with the current syntax I always have to stop and think "Ok, was it 'New then Old' or 'Old then New'?" I do know it's "alias OldSym NewSym;", but I always have to stop and think about it first. I even had to stop and think about it writing that sentence!

On Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:45:34 +0200
"so" <so@so.so> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 16 October 2012 at 17:05:14 UTC, kenji hara wrote:
> 
> > The result of my challenging. https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/1187
> >
> > Kenji Hara
> 
> As far as i remember, Andrei said that it was planned and the syntax will support templates too (like C++0x template alias). So, this might not be enough.
> 
> Something like:
> alias vec(T) = vector!(T, allocator);

I think we can save that as a separate enhancement, especially since Walter has said he wants to do the same thing for variables, too (or at least enum manifest constants, anyway):

http://forum.dlang.org/thread/jojish$2cm2$1@digitalmars.com?page=7#post-jok8e6:24k13:241:40digitalmars.com

On Tuesday, 16 October 2012 at 21:30:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> Well, that and because with the current syntax I always have to stop and think "Ok, was it 'New then Old' or 'Old then New'?"

I often have to read it to myself in a sentence, like, literally saying to myself: "alias old as new" to get it right.

On 10/16/12 1:08 AM, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
> On 10/16/12, Jonathan M Davis<jmdavisProg@gmx.com>  wrote:
>> We'd have to dig through the newsgroup archives
>
> Nah just ask Andrei he already confirmed this once.

And I confirm again.

https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/1187#issuecomment-9526522

Andrei

I would generally be pretty 'meh' on an enhancement like this, if not for the umpteen times I've aliased rather complex (read: long) types/template-instances and found myself thinking it would be nice for the new name to be at the (visually grep'able) beginning of the declaration.

Consider simple example:

alias pipe!( readText, splitLines, map!( e => e.splitter( ',' ) ), array ) readRows;

alias readRows = pipe!( readText, splitLines, map!( e => e.splitter( ',' ) ), array );

So ultimately I'm happy to see the change, even if it isn't high on the priority list imho.

-- Chris Nicholson-Sauls