alias and typedef should have assignment syntax to correspond with assignments and renamed imports.
Whenever I see or want to write "alias a b", it takes some thinking to remember what order the arguments should be in. If aliases worked as "alias newsymbol = existingsymbol", it would be trivial to determine which symbol is new and which it refers to.
Typedef has the same ugly syntax, so the same change should apply to it.
Comment #1 by nick — 2012-08-25T08:50:26Z
I removed typedef from the title as it is now deprecated in D2.
Besides assignment syntax having consistency with renamed imports and variable declarations, the current alias syntax is awkward to read and confusing for newcomers.
Alias assignment syntax should also be used for alias this:
struct Foo {
alias this = foo;
...
}
Comment #2 by nick — 2012-08-25T09:02:28Z
Also alias is often used to alias symbols, not just types. So using C typedef syntax is weird, especially now typedef is deprecated in D.