property syntax strawman

[Marianne Gagnon]

> 
> The alternative is to have a unique syntax for properties. Ideally, the 
> syntax should be intuitive and mimic its use. After much fiddling, and 
> based on n.g. suggestions, Andrei and I penciled in:
> 
>    bool empty { ... }
>    void empty=(bool b) { ... }
> 
> The only problem is when a declaration but not definition is desired:
> 
>    bool empty;
> 
> but oops! That defines a field. So we came up with essentially a hack:
> 
>    bool empty{}
> 
> i.e. the {} means the getter is declared, but defined elsewhere.
> 
> What do you think?

I liked the original idea... but this declaration syntax is a total can of worms. Like others pointed out, would the compiler automatically turn all functions with empty bodies into declarations? Would empty setters be considered a declaration? What if I actually *want*
 to use an empty body as definition? Or what if I accidentally leave a body empty when I didn't want to?

Like someone else pointed out, existing keywords could be reused :

bool empty
{
    in(bool value)
    {
        _my_empty = value;
    }
    out
    {
        return _my_empty;
    }
}

I like this quite a bit.  I never wrote any compiler, granted, but I don't think it'd be that hard to implement - and doesn't introduce any new keyword.

Or, alternatively, if you really wish to keep them separate, bool empty= { ... } isn't intuitive, as Andrei pointed out, but is already less error-prone than the empty-body declaration idea I believe