• user1234 (22/22) Oct 21 Very fortunately `auto ref` prevents overloading. After a post on
• monkyyy (5/6) Oct 21 what?
• Walter Bright (1/1) Oct 23 I'm curious about the HN reference?
• Paul Backus (3/4) Oct 23 Looks like this is the thread:

user1234 <user1234 12.de> writes:

Very fortunately `auto ref` prevents overloading. After a post on 
HN that get very little interest[0] I've found that the D 
language is able to monomorphize a function template in a way 
that's very unexpected, or at least unspecified:

```d
auto ref T max(T)(auto ref T u, auto ref T v) => u > v ? u : v;

void main()
{
     int a = 1;
     int b = 0;
     int x;

     // lvalue version
     assert(&max(a,b) is &a);
     // rvalue version
     assert(max(a,0) == a);
}
```

so at some point you have to imagine me trying this code, because 
"it's not sure if that will work".

Not very interesting you would say. Indeed when a problem is 
resolved you just dont even think it can exist.

[0]: https://simont.dreamwidth.org/242479.html

monkyyy <crazymonkyyy gmail.com> writes:

On Wednesday, 22 October 2025 at 05:23:27 UTC, user1234 wrote:
 or at least unspecified:

what?
https://dlang.org/spec/function.html#auto-ref-functions
https://dlang.org/spec/template.html#auto-ref-parameters

The one of the examples is a max function.

Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:

I'm curious about the HN reference?

Paul Backus <snarwin gmail.com> writes:

On Thursday, 23 October 2025 at 18:50:46 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
 I'm curious about the HN reference?

Looks like this is the thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45626559