Peter Alexander:
void foo(ForwardRange Range)(Range r) { r.popBack(); }And *immediately* get a type error without having to instantiate it with a variety of different range types.
It's not an easy problem. To solve it the Rust language uses typeclasses adapted from Haskell. But unlike the usual Haskell compilers Rust doesn't use global type inferencing and it keeps the C++-style monomorphization, so at run-time its generic programming is as efficient as C++ generic programming.
I also hope Rust designers will take a look at this (Efficient Dynamic Dispatch without Virtual Function Tables. The SmallEiffel Compiler), an alternative to virtual tables. Maybe the D front-end could do the same on request with a compilation switch (with no changes in D language):
http://smarteiffel.loria.fr/papers/oopsla97.pdf Bye, bearophile
