On Wed, Dec 18, 2024 at 10:12 AM Ivan Matek via Boost
Member Syntax is Better for Users Herb's UFCS P3021 https://open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2023/p3021r0.pdf has a list of reasons explaining this in detail. Since some people mentioned UFCS here before just to make clear: I am linking this paper *not* because of UFCS, but because it explains why member syntax is better for users(sections 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3).
Unfortunately, the UFCS proposals have been inherently misguided, because they are proposing something that is harder to implement, and something that nobody actually wants. We don't really need the ability to call every function in two different ways (other than for ADL customization points, but those are also a way to cope with the lack of a language feature anyway). Nobody wants to write `x.max(y)` and `starts_with(string, prefix)`. Each function should use a spelling that makes more sense for it. Many languages are perfectly happy with extension functions without any "universal" syntax. Just my two cents on the topic, to hopefully frame the discussion in the proper way.