@property - take it behind the woodshed and shoot it?

[Adam D. Ruppe]

No, god no. This would break code AGAIN and still not fix the 
problems, instead introducing new ones!

I think any property proposal that talks about parenthesis in the 
definition is wrong. With a good definition, the existing type 
system will handle the parenthesis.

@property int foo() { return 10; }

foo(); // the correct error is "type int is not callable"

This is the key point:

A property is NOT a function as far as user code is concerned. 
That's just an implementation detail.

As far as user code is concerned, a property IS its return value.


If you implement that, leaving all the other rules in the 
language exactly the same, we'll actually fix some problems 
without breaking the overwhelming bulk of existing code.


Fixing the rest of the problems is then about getting op*Assign 
to work right.



Functions not marked @property should NOT change AT ALL from what 
we have now. I am against removing the existing optional 
parenthesis rule, and I am against removing the @property 
decoration.

Fix it this time, don't break it in a different place.