new DIP5: Properties 2

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:13:55 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu 
> <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
> 
>> Maybe we should vote on this too. BTW, seems like the last poll wasn't 
>> quite the expected landslide against the dictature :o).
> 
> I think the poll might have been skewed due to context (forget my 
> newsgroup poll, that was worthy of an abortion, but I also didn't mean 
> to submit it :), I'm talking about Ary's)
> 
> The question was asked, what do you think this code means.  In the 
> context of D, where you know a symbol without parentheses can mean 
> either a function or a property/field, I'm certain there were several 
> respondants who didn't understand it was asking what they think is best, 
> not *what D currently does*.  Ask that same questions to C++ developers 
> and see what you get...
> 
> It's hard to phrase the question properly without bias to a group of 
> people who already know the current behavior.  Maybe something like:
> 
> Assume the D programming language required parentheses for normal 
> parameter-less functions, and required no parentheses for parameter-less 
> functions that returned a property.  For example, the following code 
> should imply a getter for a filter inside x:
> 
>     auto tmp = x.filter;
> 
> And the following code should imply performing a filtering action using 
> x, returning the result:
> 
>     auto tmp = x.filter();
> 
> Do you think it's worth adding such a capability, given that you will 
> then no longer be able to call ordinary parameter-less functions without 
> parentheses, an author of a property function must properly indicate 
> that the function is a property, and the compiler must trust the author 
> for this implication?

There's one way to figure it out: Ask away!

Andrei