DIP64: Attribute Cleanup

[Peter Alexander via Digitalmars-d]

On Saturday, 21 June 2014 at 17:20:08 UTC, Brian Rogoff wrote:
> I completely agree with your point, but if things never get 
> cleaned up we'll need a guy like Scott Meyers to explain the 
> overcomplicated result. I don't know how to resolve this issue, 
> opponents of change will claim that a language will never get 
> traction if it changes too much too quickly, and proponents 
> will claim that not removing inconsistencies leads to a mess. 
> Both are right.

Like most things in engineering, there is no right answer, and 
there are compromises all the way. You just have to weigh up the 
pros and cons and make a decision. Of course, reasonable people 
may disagree on the weights, so some debate may be necessary.

The pros and cons are clear here. I think it would be nice to 
have consistent syntax and keep Scott away, but it's just syntax. 
It doesn't affect the expressiveness, power, or performance of 
the language. The cost is that it breaks almost all working code. 
I do not think the pros outweigh the cons, so I do not think this 
should go ahead, and we will just have to live with Scott 
explaining why some attributes have @ and others do not.