property syntax strawman
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
Sun Aug 2 06:39:41 PDT 2009
On 2009-08-02 03:43:43 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> said:
> The alternative is to have a unique syntax for properties. Ideally, the
> syntax should be intuitive and mimic its use. After much fiddling, and
> based on n.g. suggestions, Andrei and I penciled in:
>
> bool empty { ... }
> void empty=(bool b) { ... }
Looking at it more carefully, this looks like an invitation to omit
parenthesis for functions with no argument. I mean, look at this and
tell me what it is?
T transform { ... }
Is this a transform property (returning and affine transform) or an
action function returning transform? I'd guess it's a property since it
has no parenthesis, but nothing makes this very clear.
And could you do this? Would Andrei be tempted by this?
void popFront { ... }
Note that I'm brigning this as an observation. Style guidelines can be
written mandating parenthesis for actions functions, which means my
problem of writing a coherent naming guideline is solved. But who read
the style guidelines?
While I like this syntax, the "getProperty()"/"setProperty()" syntax
(and also the "property" keyword syntax) has one advantage over this
one: it forces the interface to explicitly say "this is a
getter/setter" or "this is a property", which I expect would reduce
abuses. It's the same difference between as "opAdd" vs. "op+".
--
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
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