Function calls

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote in message 
news:hjtl33$1dag$1 at digitalmars.com...
> "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote in message 
> news:hjtet5$111d$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote in message 
>>> news:hjtcbd$r0a$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>>>> And yes, I already pointed out that would make it a no-argument 
>>>>> function. And that's precisely my point. If we accept that it's bad to 
>>>>> paint a car via its "@property" wheel, then how can we possibly accept 
>>>>> this to not be just as bad?:
>>>>>
>>>>> auto car = new Car();
>>>>> auto wheel = car.getWheel_ThisIsAFunctionNotAProperty();
>>>>> wheel.paintTheCar();
>>>> Because a function doesn't attempt to emulate a field.
>>>>
>>>
>>> D's approach to properties *forces* functions to emulate fields.
>>
>> Unfortunately not. It forces nothing. That's my problem with the 
>> feature - it's nothing more than fostering a convention.
>>
>
> A programming language *is* a set of enforced conventions. When something 
> either can't be enforced mechanically (ex: accurate and meaningful 
> variable names), or has real practical value in not having an enforced 
> convention (ex: user-definable variable names, free-form whitespace, 
> underscores in numeric literals), that's when it's left to the users to 
> make up their own arbitrary and likely-conflicting conventions. Arbitrary 
> freedoms just for the sake of it: great in real life, lousy in a 
> programming language.
>
> If we don't enforce the convention of (non-property) functions being 
> called with parens, the only things gained besides that useless "arbitrary 
> freedom in a programming language just for the sake of it" is a couple 
> fewer keystrokes and an extremely minuscule reduction in alleged "noise" 
> (the usefulness of which is easily canceled out by the fact that reduction 
> in inconsistency improves readability too).
>

We can keep dancing around it with different evidence, metaphors and 
philosophies all we want, but the bottom line is, omittable parens are a 
feature, and they just happen to be a feature that 1. causes problems and 2. 
provides extremely minimal benefits. And what do we do with features that 
cause problems and provide extremely minimal benefits? We yank 'em.