[sodapopcan]

I don't know D and just learning this syntax myself, and I'm genuinely interested in where you feel the smell is because I really like this syntax! For example:

I know Ruby, so here is what I'm used to:

  half.map { |i| i + 1 }

I also know Elixir:

  Enum.map(half, fn i -> i + 1 end)

...and JS, I guess because we have to:

  half.map(i => i + 1) // It looks just like the Ruby one

...vs whatever the Python version is... I don't know Python very well, but I imagine it involves list comprehensions...

Compare all those to the aforementioned D version :

  half[] += 1;

I'm really feeling the D version!

EDITED to fix little mistakes.

[rezonant]

All of those create a copy of the array and do not modify the original, which may be important on cases like audio manipulation, where there are for instance 44,000 array entries per second. Furthermore, I wonder if D could automatically vectorize this operation when SSE/MMX style instructions are available?

[p0nce]

It's not D that auto-vectorize such expression, it's the backend. Those "array ops" makes it easier for the compiler to convey that to the backend, though. Using LDC + arrays ops is often the best thing you can do speed-wise.

[gitgud]

Sorry I should have been more clear. Incrementing every element in an array is much less useful than ".map()" which can execute a function on every element.

It just seems like a weirdly specific syntactic sugar... which is a "language smell"... to me

[schveiguy]

You can use arrays as if they were individual operands, and it will expand out the loop and apply the expression to all the values (and can use optimization/vector tricks if posssible).

e.g.:

arr1[] += arr2[] / 10.0 + 5;

TBH, I don't use this feature much, because I work with ranges more than arrays, which do not have this ability. This feature predates ranges (and the std.algorithm.map function, which can do what you say as well).

[destructionator]

Well you can also just call .map if you want. The nice thing about the [] operation is the compiler can optimize it more heavily since it is restricted to simpler instructions.