Compile-time reflection

[Lutger]

Kirk McDonald wrote:
<snip>

It would be great to have the functionality you propose in D.

> 
> There are three kinds of member functions: virtual, static, and final. 
> The next important mechanism that is needed is a way to distinguish 
> these from each other. An important rule of function overloading works 
> in our favor, here: A given function symbol can only refer to functions 
> which are all virtual, all static, or all final. Therefore, this should 
> be considered a property of the symbol, as opposed to one of the 
> function itself.
> 
> The actual syntax for this mechanism needs to be determined. D has 
> 'static' and 'final' keywords, but no 'virtual' keyword. Additionally, 
> the 'static' keyword has been overloaded with many meanings, and I 
> hesitate suggesting we add another. Nonetheless, I do.
> 
> static(A.bar == static) == false
> static(A.bar == final) == false
> static(A.bar == virtual) == true

This looks very confusing to me, however, if you'd replace the first 
static with 'is' it makes sense:

is(A.bar == static) == false
is(A.bar == final) == false
is(A.bar == virtual) == true

Is there a problem with this, grammar-wise?

Btw, if introducing 'virtual' is undesirable, it can be left out since 
it can be inferred from being final nor static, and for this some 
library side syntactic sugar can be made.