cast(public)

[dsimcha]

I know I've probably mentioned this one here before, but it was buried in long
threads.

Could we put a feature in the language that allows private member variables to
be cast to public?  The idea is that, if a class/struct designer makes
something private, they're saying it's a bad idea to mess with it, and that
you do so at your own risk.  However, I think there needs to be a back door to
cowboy this one, because otherwise private/protected is just too restrictive
for a language like D.  It would work something like this:

struct Foo {
    private uint bar;
}

void main() {
    Foo foo;
    foo.bar++;  // error
    (cast(public) foo.bar)++;  // Works.
}