• S. <S s.com> Jan 08 2008

S. <S s.com> writes:

Walter Bright Wrote:

 The issue comes up now and then about why have complex and imaginary 
 types, rather than using structs? All but one of the advantages of 
 having them be core types can be addressed with advancing compiler 
 technology. Getting rid of them will release 6 keywords, and make the 
 core language simpler. Given the increasing complexity of D, this will help.
 
 The remaining advantage is that of imaginary literals, i.e. the i postfix:
 
 	3 + 5i
 
 Assuming we solve the literal problem, existing code would only need to add:
 
 	import std.complex;
 
 to acquire complex and imaginary types.


As a physicist who uses D for simulations, my answer is NO!   Your original
cited papers are good reasons NOT to do this.   You should also go re-read what
YOU wrote on the subject and the papers you cited. 

I don't think that releasing those keywords really makes the language much less
"complex."  

Making the language "less" complex entitles making things intuitive, and things
that are not intuitive clearly documented!

-S.