new DIP5: Properties 2

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:11:45 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu  
<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:

> 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!

I'm a little gunshy after the last one I did.  Can someone else proofread  
it and tell me if the question is a good one?

-Steve