DIP4: Properties

[Daniel Keep]

Excused.  :D

Look at it from a practical standpoint: it *would* be nice to have
dedicated syntax, but Walter *is opposed to it*.  He doesn't see the
need for it.

I think I'm like him in this respect: he wants to find a way of doing
this without having to actually extend the language.

If Walter becomes convinced that properties DO need improvement AND
deserve special syntax, then hooray!  The proposal I brought up is
superfluous and can be discarded.

But we know he's currently against adding syntax.  So he might reject
your proposal.  That's where the one I posted about comes in: it
*doesn't* require syntax changes to the language; it improves properties
the best we can without doing adding syntax.

If he rejects yours, maybe he'll be more receptive to the alternative.
Yes, it's not as syntactically nice as yours, but it's STILL an improvement.

And yeah, mixins are ugly.  But if no one ever uses them, they'll never
improve.  Maybe if lots of code is using them, Walter will be inclined
to work on macros to improve the situation.

Some improvement is better than none.  Sometimes you have to compromise.
 I don't think we should ignore or demonise viable alternatives because
they're not what we specifically wanted.