properties

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Ary Borenszweig wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>> On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:11:09 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu 
>>> <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
>>>> Guess what - they both behave like functions. So their properties 
>>>> are an elaborate mechanism that is actually thoroughly unchecked, 
>>>> thus going back to what you could do by calling functions. So why 
>>>> the hell did they define the feature in the first place? Oh, for 
>>>> allowing people to write a.foo() instead of a.foo. You know what, 
>>>> that's a bit disappointing for an entire language feature.
>>>
>>> No, they did it to *force* you to write a.foo instead of a.foo(), to 
>>> make it more defined that foo is a field-like entity.
>>
>> Which is not, because it can execute arbitrary code that is not 
>> restricted in any way. How good a design is that? Back to semantics by 
>> convention?
> 
> Back to semantics by convention?
> 
> Whenever you write *anything*, there's always semantic by convention.
> 
> writefln("Foo");
> 
> That writefln could just do antyhing with it's argument, maybe return it 
> twice. So how do you enforce writefln to actually write something? 
> Aaaah... D sucks because it can't enforce that.

I was replying to the expectation that a.foo() does an action and a.foo 
allegedly does not.

Andrei