static & dynamic array unification about ante HOT 2 CLOSED

I am debating even including static arrays in Ante. The array literals you see will most likely be a vector-like type by default and thus will already have the size included. For me, it is extremely rare when I would ever use a static array, and a dynamic array would still be valid in all of those scenarios. Furthermore, since vectors would be first class citizens, the compiler would know about them and know when the size value could be optimized away.

from ante.

I am debating even including static arrays in Ante.

This sounds reasonable (to give them up). If Ante will have the ability to use custom allocators then one could carve up part of the stack, make arena allocator and it would have the same layout and the same speed as static array sitting there. Short arrays inside structures (like 2D/3D points) could be turned into handful of named members, long arrays would only hog the cache.

The language converts variable number of arguments into static array. This should be taken into consideration.

I though about my idea a bit and got a counter-example: say I want to have array container of owned pointers (self deleting pointers). This can be rather easily implemented as an object but it would not (easily) fit into the unified array idea.

I am closing this for good.

from ante.