> Few libraries hoping to achieve general usage will abuse operator overloading too badly, and if they do, potential users will resist adopting it widely.
Perhaps this is true for some language ecosystems and less true for others. But for the sake of argument, I’ll assume that this is generally true. Even in that case, if each library “abuse”s operator overloading in a new and interesting way, the problem still exists for the library ecosystem as a whole.
> I think what is more useful than even more language features to restrict the usage of these, is strong documentation and evangelism/marketing around the feature to help ensure it will be used appropriately.
I can’t imagine this scaling as well as building (or specifically choosing not to build) something into a language.
Perhaps this is true for some language ecosystems and less true for others. But for the sake of argument, I’ll assume that this is generally true. Even in that case, if each library “abuse”s operator overloading in a new and interesting way, the problem still exists for the library ecosystem as a whole.
> I think what is more useful than even more language features to restrict the usage of these, is strong documentation and evangelism/marketing around the feature to help ensure it will be used appropriately.
I can’t imagine this scaling as well as building (or specifically choosing not to build) something into a language.