Interchanging `Str` and `StrView`s

[osa1]

A Str is a UTF-8 encoded immutable unicode string.

A StrView is a view into a Str. This type is always unboxed, and can be created as a result of a pattern match.

This distinction is useful and allows things like pattern matching on a string and binding the rest of the matched string in a local variable in an efficient way.

However it also means that we have two types for strings and for common operations like startsWith or string equality we need to convert between types manually. For example:

trait Eq[T]:
    fn __eq(self, other: T): Bool

impl Eq[Str]:
    fn __eq(self, other: Str): Bool = ...

impl Eq[StrView]:
    fn __eq(self, other: StrView): Bool = ...

With these definitions, if I have a Str and a StrView, I have to manually convert one to the other to compare. Similarly:

fn Str.startsWith(self, prefix: Str): Bool = ...

fn StrView.startsWith(self, prefix: StrView): Bool = ...

Since creating a StrView from a Str is cheap (the other way requires allocation and copying the contents), we could use it in arguments when possible:

-- Both methods take `StrView` argument now.
fn Str.startsWith(self, prefix: StrView): Bool = ...
fn StrView.startsWith(self, prefix: StrView): Bool = ...

But the Eq trait definitions doesn't allow this, as the other parameter has type T (i.e. same type as self).

Secondly, even if we could use StrView somehow, having to manually convert one to the other will be annoying.

Some ideas:

• Generalize Eq trait, add a type parameter for the compared-against type.

  I'm not sure if it's worth making a trait as commonly used as Eq more complicated.

  Also, the problem exists in Ord, methods like startsWith etc.

• Have something like Rust's Deref with the similar implicit coercion semantics: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/ops/trait.Deref.html#deref-coercion

  Not sure if this fits nicely in Fir.