Jonathan M Davis: > Personally, I find > how C++ created multiple types of cast (include const_cast) _highly_ annoying > and generally useless, and I'm _very_ glad that D didn't do anything of the > sort.
Conflating all casts in a single syntax makes the D language look a bit simpler, but it also reduces the amount of expressivity and I suspect it may lead to some bugs (here Unqual helps). Changing the const state of a type is often orthogonal to changing its data type. Thankfully D templates make it easy enough to build new types of cast. Time ago I have proposed a staticObjCast! for object references that performs some static sanity tests too. Unqual!() is another kind of cast, but it's a bit blunt. std.conv.to! is another kind of cast, that performs more complex conversions too. I am proposing to use to! for safe enum conversions too. A staticCast! that uses a locally defined enum sounds useful and safe. Bye, bearophile
