"body" keyword is unnecessary

[Don]

piotrek wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:04:25 +0100, Don wrote:
> 
>> piotrek wrote:
>>> On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:37:12 +0800, KennyTM~ wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mar 24, 11 19:00, sclytrack wrote:
>>>>> == Quote from piotrek (starpit at tlen.pl)'s article
>>>>>> On Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:17:32 +0100, Alvaro wrote:
>>>>>>> D already has a long list of keywords, reserved words can't be used
>>>>>>> as identifiers, which can be annoying. "body" in particular is a
>>>>>>> common noun that programmers would gladly use as a variable name in
>>>>>>> physics simulation, astronomy, mechanics, games, health, etc. I
>>>>>>> think "body" can be removed from D with no harm, and with the
>>>>>>> benefit of allowing the name as identifier.
>>>>>> yes, please
>>>>>> body is also a html tag
>>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>> Piotrek
>>>>> Copied the following line from the Vala (=mostly reference counted
>>>>> language) web page.
>>>>>
>>>>> "It is possible to use a reserved keyword as identifier name by
>>>>> prefixing it with the @ character. This character is not part of the
>>>>> name. For example, you can name a method foreach by writing @foreach,
>>>>> even though this is a reserved Vala keyword."
>>>>>
>>>>> My body is hungry and starving.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> How is this better than _body or body_?
>>> I think "@" is a little bit nicer, but it doesn't change the situation
>>> at all . body (if possible) shouldn't be a keyword. Can anyone from the
>>> steering group state his opinion? :)
>> What's the steering group?
> 
> I think you belong there. :) Along with Walter, Andrei, Brad and Sean.
> Of course support of  David, Steven, Lars and Jonathan and the 
> whole community is invaluable. :)

Walter makes all the language decisions. The rest of us have just been 
able to convince him on multiple occasions (but I think that even Andrei 
has not achieved 50% convince rate). Hint #1: if you want to convince 
Walter, produce some real world use cases. Hint #2: you've got more 
chance if you make a patch, but ONLY if you've satisfied hint 1.

>> I raised this exact topic before, with the title "my body is ugly" <g>.
>> It's a very silly keyword. It's just a comment, really /*body*/.
> 
> What stops Walter from removing it? If it was me, the next dmd 
> release would have one keyword less ;) (Forget for a while that
> I'm not familiar with the dmd code)

Priorities. If you spend any time on 'body', that's time taken away from 
fixing important bugs. The potential benefit is *tiny*. There are 1000 
bugs that are more important.