On 2012-07-10 17:30, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
It would be possible to chain a single element to the end of a range. One related thing to do is to define singletonRange(x) that returns a range with exactly one element, namely x.
Ok, I saw that suggestion in another post.
Ranges and std.algorithm obey simple, mathematical realities deriving from algorithm and storage topology constraints. For example sort works in place so it generally can't work on mapped stuff because there's no place to put the sorted contents. Also sort needs a random-access range to work with so it can't work e.g. with the result of filter, which necessarily yields a non-random-access range. And so on.
Can't "map" and "filter" return a random-access range if that's what they receive?
Now I understand if you come from a place where there's no concern over hidden allocations and extra work for the benefit of convenience, you may find std.algorithm less easy to work with. But drawing the conclusion that std.algorithm is badly designed or gratuitously difficult to use would be a mistake. I opine I can recognize a good vs. bad design even when it's mine, and in my opinion std.algorithm is a good design and that most of your opposing impressions derive from a misunderstanding of its charter.
I don't think I've struggled as much with any other API I've used. In many cases I had to resort to foreach-loops because that was more convenient than using std.algorithm.
-- /Jacob Carlborg
