byKey and byValue: properties or methods?

[Timon Gehr]

On 01/17/2012 01:41 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Jonathan M Davis"<jmdavisProg at gmx.com>  wrote in message
> news:mailman.496.1326793835.16222.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>> On Tuesday, January 17, 2012 09:07:04 Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
>>> On 17-01-2012 07:48, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>> I hate I must ask this:
>>>>
>>>> int[string] aa;
>>>> foreach (k; aa.byKey) { ... }
>>>>
>>>> or
>>>>
>>>> int[string] aa;
>>>> foreach (k; aa.byKey()) { ... }
>>>>
>>>
>>> The "by" in the name is way too awkward for a property. If it was just
>>> named "keys" and "values", it would've been perfectly fine to make them
>>> properties, but the "by" just looks awkward when you "call" them as
>>> properties.
>>>
>>> As far as efficiency goes, I don't think these perform any work that is
>>> heavy enough to warrant not making them properties. (I can't say that
>>> same for .dup/.idup... I still don't get why those are properties, at
>>> all.)
>>
>> Agreed. If it were keys and values, then a property would make sense.
>> However,
>> since it's byKey and byValue, I don't think that it makes as much sense. It
>> _is_ a bit of a weird case though, since byKey and byValue are neither
>> nouns
>> nor verbs.
>>
>
> You're all getting hung up on the trivial detail of the names. Look at the
> semantics: They retreive a range associated with the aa, right? Right.
> Property. It's a plain old classic getter.
>
>

In fact, it creates a new copy that can be iterated on.