if(;){} opinion

[Derek Parnell]

On Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:44:28 +1100, Walter Bright  
<newshound at digitalmars.com> wrote:

>
> "Charles" <noone at nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:du002j$2pcm$1 at digitaldaemon.com...
>> I think its short for 'auto' deduction ?
>>
>> 'var' gets my vote
>
> 'auto' goes way back to C and means "allocate on the stack". This also
> implicitly means "destruct at end of scope." In order for type inference  
> to
> work, there has to be a keyword in front of the declaration to let the
> parser know it's a declaration rather than an assignment. Thus, 'auto'  
> now
> means "allocate on the stack" and if the type is missing it also means
> "infer the type." Types can be inferred with other storage classes:
>
>     static x = 3;        // x is int
>
> This follows the 'auto' proposal for C++ as far as I know.
>
> 'var' would be a digression into pascalishness (ugh <g>).

Language Bigot! <G>

Seriously though ... who cares if its a C thingy! This is NOT C. But you  
already know that. Just because C does 'X' is it good enough to justify  
keeping 'X'? You've already changed lots of other things to achieve a  
better, consistent, language - so why stop at this wart.

'auto', as a word, is too ambiguous to because it is an adjective that can  
apply to many things. Ok, so C applys it to automatic stack allocation and  
so does D, but D also applies it to automatic type-casting too. Why do you  
want your language to be ridiculed for this wart when it is so easy to  
change it. If you are too frightened of it being a Pascal-looking language  
(and 'var' will not do that, BTW), then pick some other more meaningful  
word.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia