D-Programming-Language/druntime — pull request #174 by Abscissa (2012-03-09 21:10:07+00:00)
Title: Replace dur!"minutes"(3) with minutes(3), etc. Maintain a duration!"minutes"(3) for the sake of generic code.

Replace ```dur!"minutes"(3)``` with ```minutes(3)```, etc. Maintains a ```duration!"minutes"(3)``` for the sake of generic code. The ```dur``` is kept as a "to be deprecated" transition path leading up to the preferred alternative of ```minutes(3)``` for the majority of code, and ```duration``` for the rare cases genericness is needed.

These changes provide decreased verbosity without the need for the contrived and controversial ```dur``` abbreviation, and also without removing the ability to be generic.

I would STRONGLY assert that this is NOT a case of "pointless aliasing" in the std lib: The idea here is that ```minutes()/hours()/etc.``` ARE the new replacement for ```dur```. The ```duration``` is ADDED functionality on top of ```minutes()/hours()/etc.``` So why not just use ```dur/duration``` instead of ```minutes()/hours()/etc.```? Because in the vast majority of use-cases, ```dur/duration``` are needlessly verbose to a degree that's unreasonable for simply referring to X units of Y time.

This is based on discussion, which had overall strong support for the change, in these NG subthreads:

http://forum.dlang.org/post/jj6gjm$2m6a$1@digitalmars.com
http://forum.dlang.org/post/mailman.115.1331078432.4860.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com
http://forum.dlang.org/post/jj6hnv$2o9s$1@digitalmars.com