[Issue 13388] accept '@' before 'nothrow', 'pure', 'final', 'abstract' and 'override'

[via Digitalmars-d-bugs]

https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13388

--- Comment #19 from Trey Brisbane <tbrisbane at gmail.com> ---
For a language that was conceived to address issues exactly like this in
languages like C++, I think that's a pretty poor view to take.

Functional changes (new features, fixing bugs, etc) are obviously of great
importance, since they alter the ability of users to actually get work done.

Aesthetic changes (syntax alteration, function renaming, etc) are what you do
early in a languages life-span in order to make working with the language for
new users *as pleasurable as possible*. D2 is less than 8 years old, and you're
telling me that a problem, that I have directly observed turn potential new
users away from the language, is going to be ignored into the future simply
because it is an aesthetic change? This is despite the fact that you have at
least two people here willing to take the time to make the required changes
(one of whom has already submitted candidate patches), and provide as easy an
upgrade path as is possible? That we could write highly-informative deprecation
messages, or a compiler-flag to essentially auto-upgrade code to conform to the
changes, or  simply allow for an alternative, and none of these are good
enough?

That is silly, I'm sorry to say.

I would understand it if Walter or Andrei themselves were tasked to work on it,
because yes, that would be a waste of time. But when you have at least two
people sitting here willing to make the contribution and you're turning them
down simply because "lol aesthetic change", how can you expect the wider
community to take the time to contribute when the over-arching mentality
nowadays seems to be "haha good luck getting your change accepted"?

No, time is not a valid excuse. We are here, and we are willing to do what is
required to fix this problem one way or another. 

Is D really at the stage where we're turning away contributors because "oh god
we might lose a few precious users who don't understand that a relatively new
language might have breaking changes"?

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