Optional braces

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 8/19/11 1:50 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> This might sound like a crazy idea. I don't expect everyone to drop what
> they're doing and start to implement this, it's just an idea.
>
> In Java (C, C++ and others) braces are optional for statements like if,
> while, for and so on, containing only one expression. In D this is true
> as well, but compared with Java, D also allow try, catch and finally
> statements to have optional braces.
>
> What about extending this to allow optional braces everywhere, where the
> braces contain a single expression? I'm thinking this will be most
> useful for functions/methods, templates and delegates. Specially for
> methods acting as properties that just forwards a value.
>
> Examples:
>
> class Foo
> {
> private int a_;
> int a () return a_;
> int a (int a) return a_ = a;
> }
>
> template Bar (T) alias T FooBar;
>
> auto foo = delegate () return 3;
> auto bar = return 3; // don't if this would be possible

One thing I'd subjectively like is to require braces on both branches of 
if/else if at least one has braces.

Andrei