Always define range(start, stop)

[martinholters]

Ref. #640 and JuliaLang/julia#30374 (comment). I aim at implementing option 3 mentioned in the latter, i.e. tag a release after this has been merged, then remove the offending functionality and tag another release.

Downside here is

WARNING: Method definition range(Any, Any) in module Base at range.jl:91 overwritten in module Compat at /home/travis/build/JuliaLang/Compat.jl/src/Compat.jl:1857.
WARNING: Method definition #range(Any, typeof(Base.range), Any, Any) in module Base overwritten in module Compat.

of course.

[martinholters]

Well, the warning could be avoided with

function __init__()
    @eval Base begin
        range(start, stop; kwargs...) = range(start; stop=stop, kwargs...)
    end
end

but that feels so wrong I'm not sure I don't prefer the warning... Better ideas?

[martinholters]

Thinking about this again, it would be nice to deprecate range(start, stop) in the next major version (instead of making it error directly), but then these warnings would be really unfortunate, so I've updated with the @eval Base version.

@ararslan, any comments?

[ararslan]

This is really heinous... I think at one point @yuyichao mentioned that it's bad for precompilation as well, though I fully admit to not understanding the details on why.

[martinholters]

Doing @eval Base outside __init__ runs afoul of precompilation (and gives a warning to that effect).

[ararslan]

So it's legit to do in __init__, just not in the package body?

[martinholters]

I'd hope so (to the extent it's ever legit to eval into Base).

[ararslan]

to the extent it's ever legit to eval into Base

...which I thought was never

[martinholters]

In any case, I haven't found a better way of achieving the (short-term) goal of providing range(start, stop) on Julia 1.1.

[ararslan]

Yeah, I'm hesitant about this approach but I don't have a better suggestion.

[martinholters]

Great, so we're in agreement here. Who else might have something to contribute here that could bring us to a decision?

[martinholters]

@StefanKarpinski, JuliaLang/julia#30374 (comment) means you have to chime in here 😄

[martinholters]

Barring objections, I think I'll merge this tomorrow. Even if the implementation has flaws (and I'm not saying it has, just that it might), it's still a step forward IMO.