Extension Methods moving slowly SIP-ward

Not quite there yet (this is basically a discussion before the formal discussion before a SIP), but the new Extension Method syntax is now being discussed on the Scala Contributors forum.

I’ve mentioned this one before: it’s basically the replacement for the main use case of implicit classes in Scala 2. Instead of playing games with implicits, we get new first-class syntax for extension methods in Scala. The syntax looks like:

def (x: String) < (y: String)

to add a new < operator to String. Basically, you can put a single-parameter list before the name of a method; that identifies the type that this method extends.

The new syntax looked a little weird to me when it was first proposed, but I’ve gradually become strongly in favor of it — I think it’s a really clear way of defining the extension method: both readable and sufficiently different so that you can easily distinguish it from ordinary methods.

Anyway, if you’re interested in the topic, check out the linked discussion, the [Dottydoc](https://dotty.epfl.ch/docs/reference/contextual/extension-methods.html), and [the PR where this got hashed out in detail](https://github.com/lampepfl/dotty/pull/5114) for more information…