On Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 23:01:39 UTC, Charles Hixson wrote:
auto has its uses, but it's wildly overused, especially in
library code and documentation, and really, really, *really*
much so in documentation examples.
A lot of functions in `std.algorithm` are actually quite clear
about it, e.g. `splitter`:
"auto splitter(alias pred = "a == b", Range, Separator)(Range r,
Separator s)
...
Returns:
An input range of the subranges of elements between separators.
If r is a forward range or bidirectional range, the returned
range will be likewise. When a range is used a separator,
bidirectionality isn't possible."
So it obviously returns a range which you can process as a range.
No need to know about the exact type (which may change). All you
need to know is that it adheres to a minimal range interface
(r.empty, r.front, r.popFront). Without `auto`, it'd be a solid
mess and generics would become more or less useless.
Even Java is moving into this direction and it makes sense for a
lot of day to day issues, programmes will increasingly demand it.
Code like the following is much more elegant than using the ould
for loop:
JSONObject jitems = new JSONObject();
data.entrySet()
.forEach(i -> { jitems.put(i.getKey(), i.getValue());
});
