Suggestion: Change precedence of 'new'

[Bill Baxter]

Jason House wrote:
> Bill Baxter Wrote:
> 
>> Robert Fraser wrote:
>>> Unknown W. Brackets wrote:
>>>> I think the problem is in supporting this syntax:
>>>>
>>>> auto x = new package.module.Class;
>>> The argument (as far as I can tell) is that it would be supported only 
>>> if trailing parentheses were supplied, so that expression would have to 
>>> be written as "new package.module.Class().propertyMethod;".
>> That makes sense.  So the rule would be that 'new' munches all the 
>> dot-separated identifiers to its right till it hits something besides a 
>> dot or an identifier.
>>
>> Here's another one from actual D code ported from Java:
>>
>>      (new class Runnable {
>>          public void run() {
>>              if (canvas.isDisposed()) return;
>>              render();
>>              canvas.swapBuffers();
>>              canvas.getDisplay().timerExec(15, this);
>>          }
>>      }).run();
>>
>> In Java the parens around that whole mess aren't necessary.
>>
>> --bb
> 
> 
> Why would anyone write code like that in D?  First of all a delegate works just as well as a class with one member.  Second, if this is simply run like a blocking function call, why not define a nested function and just call it?  
> 
> PS: I'm not trying to knock down your feature request.  I just find the example strange.  I'm sure there's more useful examples available and you just picked one at random.

Yeh, sorry.  It wasn't meant to be a convincing argument about why the 
features is needed.  It was just some SWT Java code I happened to be 
porting yesterday, so it was more just to say "here's another thing that 
works without parens in the Java way".

Unless you're porting Java code, I hope no one does write D code like 
that.  :-)

But I have wanted to do things like
     new Widget(args).enabled = false;

--bb