const generics are very close to being done, which will fix the array issue you mention by allowing code to be generic over integers as well as types. This is a

const generics are very close to being done, which will fix the array issue you mention by allowing code to be generic over integers as well as types. This is already in for built-in arrays and traits but user traits currently require nightly. I agree with you about the orphan rule being annoying and wish they’d relax that, but I much prefer traits to C++ duck-typed templates, if only because it makes error messages from passing an unsupported type to a generic function clear and concise as opposed to the thousands of lines of confusing output you often get in C++.