Yet a new properties proposal

[Dimitar Kolev]

Bill Baxter Wrote:

> The point is to be able to start with
> 
> class Foo
> {
>    int a;
> }
> 
> and later change implementation or add access monitoring without
> affecting all the code that already acceesses Foo's .a field.
> So this should compile both before and after changing Foo.a from a
> field to a property:
> 
> Foo x;
> x.a = 3;
> x.a += 3;  // **
> writefln("x.a now %s", x.a);
> 
> --bb
> ** this doesn't currently work with D when a() is a function, but it should.

As long as there is a function called a inside that class there will be no way to call a.a without calling that function or calling that member value.

You just need a special word for that.

And what I am proposing is not a word but simple a character #.

You want to start with:

class a
{
    int a;
}

but when I put

class a
{
   int b;
   int b() { return 3;}
}

there will be no way to distinguish between the two calls without the compiler being forced to call an error and yet again the user will have to change his/her code.

Just make all properties accessed by # and you will save yourself the ambiguities of calling a function or a property with the same names.