Fixing D's Properties

[Chad J]

Alright I forgot to mention what something like "a.prop.x = foo;" would 
expand to.

It would work like this:

a.prop.x = foo;

expands to

auto temp = a.prop;
temp.x = foo;
a.prop = temp;

Whether temp is a reference or value type need not matter, it should 
work exactly as it would if there was a variable there instead of a 
property.
I suppose Sean's suggestion of allowing programmers to trap reference 
and value uses of properties would work, but I am skeptical that it 
might break the close compatibility between plain variables (fields) and 
properties.  It should be feasible as long as there is a way to make a 
property equivalent to a field wrt calling syntax/semantics.

Longer chains should be broken down as such:

a.prop1.prop2.field.prop3.x = foo;

->

auto temp1 = a.prop1;
auto temp2 = temp1.prop2;
auto temp3 = temp2.field.prop3;
temp3.x = foo;
temp2.field.prop3 = temp3;
temp1.prop2 = temp2;
a.prop1 = temp1;

Hope that helps.