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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">On 14/03/2024 23:44 UTC, Maurizio Cimadamore wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> On 14/03/2024 22:36, Robbe Pincket wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> (I’m not a big fan of `TEMPLATE"Foo: \{bar}"` either as it’s just so much longer than `"Foo: " + bar`)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> Note that when I suggested TEMPLATE as a prefix I was obviously not being super serious :-)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> Let's do a test (bear with me). Let's assume the two prefixes were S and T (not saying I like them, just trying them out for size). Let's also assume there's no conversion. Then your examples become:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> ```<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> String s1 = "test" // still a string literal<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> StringTemplate st2 = T"test" // allowed, constant strings can be implicitly converted to templates<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> StringTemplate st3 = "Foo: \{bar}" // Simple string template<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> String s4c = S"Foo: \{bar}" // short for String.of("Foo: \{bar}")
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> ```<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> I think that's not too bad? (please don't focus too much on the letters).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> In the sense: the rare cases (st2) has a prefix. And the operation we want explicit (s4c) also has a prefix. Everything else is fine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">So the difference is that `T` (or something else) has to be used for templates without any holes?
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">To me it feels a bit weird to have a prefix for the special case of a hole-less template.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">I think I saw an argument passing by, saying something along the line that `String` and `StringTemplate` are semantically different so implicit conversion in either direction would be bad because it would be ambigous.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">If this `T` idea is based on that, I don't really see why it would be that bad. If an API accepts either, I would intuitivly expect that passing a string and passing a hole-less template with the same string would give
me the same result.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> Control question #1: does the conversion here change things much? Or, are we reaching for conversions just to have something "shorter" ?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> Control question #2: let's now assume that S and T were spelled (String) and (StringTemplate), respectively. How do we feel about this?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> ```<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> String s1 = "test" // still a string literal<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> StringTemplate st2 = (StringTemplate)"test" // allowed, cast from constant string to template<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> StringTemplate st3 = "Foo: \{bar}" // Simple string template<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> String s4c = (String)"Foo: \{bar}" // allowed, cast from template back to String (interpolation)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> ```<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">I think I answered #1. Having the 'T' *just* for the "hole-less" template feels a bit odd? I don't you can sell me on #2.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">* Why would I prefer using `(String)"Foo: \{bar}"` over `"Foo: " + bar`. This is not just a "length issue", as templates would win with more holes, but there is also a cost of switching habits.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">* (Ignoring primitives), casts have up until now always just returned the input, but now with a different static type. Using the casting syntax to do actual interpolation (or create a template from a string) feels weird
to me<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">If ´(StringTemplate)"test"` and `(String)"Foo: \{bar}"` are valid, will the following things work too? `"test" instanceof StringTemplate template` and `"Foo: \{bar}" instanceof String str`. The second one I'd assume no,
the first one is a bit unclear to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"> Maurizio<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">Kind regards<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-BE">Robbe Pincket</span></p>
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