Reddit: why aren't people using D?

[Kagamin]

Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:

> Might be because (a) we aren't getting our priorities right, (b) we 
> ascribe more to properties than what the compiler really makes of them.
> 
> At the end of the day, a property is a notational convenience. Instead 
> of writing:
> 
> obj.set_xyz(5);
> int a = obj.get_xyz();
> 
> properties allow us to write:
> 
> obj.xyz = 5;
> int a = obj.xyz;
> 
> Just to be 100% clear, I agree that the convenience is great. But I 
> don't know why the hell I need to learn a whole different syntax for 
> *defining* such things, when the compiler itself doesn't give a damn - 
> it just blindly rewrites the latter into something like the former.

May be namespace states your complaints. It doesn't add a whole new syntax, only kinda one extra level of indirection, naturally reusing existing feature of operator overloading, and I think it should look natural to compiler too: it's the same as operator overloading, compiler already does it.

And calling properties is only one aspect of the problem. The other is declaration. You heard it: implicit backing storage, default trivial implementation, type consistency. We don't have problems with calling properties. In fact complaints about current design originates from problems with property declaration: the problem is compiler doesn't know what is a function and what is a property.