Reddit: why aren't people using D?

[Bill Baxter]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Michiel
Helvensteijn<m.helvensteijn.remove at gmail.com> wrote:
> Lutger wrote:
>
>> There have been a lot of discussions on this topic in the past but I can't
>> recall any conclusions. Perhaps some brave soul would dare to write a DIP
>> on properties?
>
> Property DIPs have been offered in the newsgroup in the past, only before
> they were called DIPs. I also offered a possible design:
>
> http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=81759
>
> Feel free to modify and/or DIPify it.

"""
I've always thought properties should work somewhat like this:

property int length {
    get() { return this.len; }
    set(newLen) { this.len = newLen; }
}
"""

I'm curious.  Is it just a coincidence that how you've "always
thought" happens to look a lot like C# properties?   Or did you mean
to say "Ever since I saw how C# does properties I've thought...."?

In any event I think a problem with this is that for D's simple
grammar to remain simple and context free, get and set would both have
to be made keywords in the language.  Can a compiler guru confirm
that?  Not a big issue, but introducing 3 keywords for this one
feature will be a tough sell.   Perhaps just

property int length {
    () { return this.len; }
    (newLen) { this.len = newLen; }
}

would be enough.  Maybe I'm wrong about get/set being an issue, though.

--bb