seeding the pot for 2.0 features

[doob]

Chad J Wrote:

> BCS wrote:
> > Now that the big 1.0 is out, I think that we should start considering 
> > what to put into 2.0. I don't think we need to rush anything into D yet, 
> > but maybe we should start accumulating a list of things to consider.
> > 
> > One overall thought I had is that it seems the big killer for C++ was to 
> > some extent that it is a strict superset of C. Maybe we should avoid 
> > this problem and not requiter that D2.0 be backwards compatible at the 
> > source level, but only at the ABI level sort of like C and D are now. 
> > Anyway, just a thought.
> 
> ...
> 
> The first thing that comes to my mind is explicit properties.  I believe 
> they can be done without using new keywords or sacrificing much 
> generality.  Eventually the implicit properties could be deprecated, 
> when everyone feels they are no longer widely used.


I think it would be good to add a "property" keyword and maybe also "get" and "set". I think also would be nice to add a feature from ruby that i think works something like this:

Ruby code:
class C
{
	attr_reader :variable1, :variable2, :variable3
}

and this will create a private variable and a read property. And ther is also "attr_writer" to create a write property. In D this could look something like this

D code:
class C
{
    property
    {
        int variable1;
        char[] variable2;
        int variable3;
    }
}

This would create a private variable and a get and set property method.
Then you could also write like this:

D code:
class C
{
    private property
    {
        int variable1;
        char[] variable2;
        int variable3;
    }
}

to make the get and set property methods private.
You could write like this:

D code:
class C
{
    get
    {
        int variable1;
        char[] variable2;
        int variable3;
    }
}

to only make a private variable and a get property method.
The get and set methods would be public as default(i think) and the variable would always be private. I think it would be great if you could write as i have described above because when you want a private variable and get and set methods that only sets or returns the value. If you would like to do something in the methods it could look like this:

D code:
class C
{
    private int variable_;
    
    public get int variable ()
    {
        return variable_;
    }

    public set int variable (int variable)
    {
        if (variable > 3)
            return variable_ = variable;
    }
}