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

[Rob T]

On Saturday, 26 January 2013 at 21:48:54 UTC, Artur Skawina wrote:
[..]
>
> Hmm, the current state of them being defined by two separate 
> functions really
> isn't ideal. But introducing new keywords or magic identifiers 
> just for this
> does not seem right.
>
>    class A
>    {
>        private int i;
>        int foo {
>            out { return i; }
>            in(int v) { i = v; }
>        }
>    }
>
> or
>
>    class A
>    {
>        private int i;
>        @property foo {
>            int out { return i; }
>            in(int v) { i = v; }
>        }
>    }
>
> artur

In a more pefect world, we'd redefine what a variable and 
function is, merging the two together as one, let the compiler 
optimize things appropriately, and make the language issues far 
more consistent and simple.

For example, typeof(x) is way too simplistic to be of use when 
you have objects that have more than on type. For example, a 
property has a setter, getter, and storage type, so what should 
typeof(prop) return? It can only tell you one thing out of at 
least 3 things, so it's insufficient.

Great for C, useless for D.

We're basically finding ourselves in the same position C++ has 
found itself in, where the old concepts are no longer suitable 
for a modern language, but there's no practical way to resolve 
the situation without redesigning the whole language into a new 
one. D tried to make a better C++, and it has done a good job of 
that up to a point, but since it has made use of many of the old 
paradigms as its base, it can only do so much.

One solution is to not bother trying to add on any extra 
complexity that does not fit in.

--rt