Proposal: user defined attributes

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2012-03-20 16:17, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 3/20/12 12:50 AM, Kapps wrote:

> Perhaps we should add a field of type Variant[string].

No, not Variant[string] again.

>> This is an already ridiculously hackish approach, and
>> it *does not* work for anything besides trivial applications. It is
>> completly unreasonable to expect everything to be done in a library; the
>> compiler exists for a reason and at some point you have to draw the
>> line.
>
> I'm afraid I disagree. A targeted language feature definitely makes a
> library approach inferior, by definition. But adding features is
> cheating, like printing money is for a government: very tempting, with
> apparently good short-term benefits, but with devastating cumulative
> effects.
>
> Also, as I mentioned, the availability of the easy escape hatch of
> adding a language feature thwarts creativity. Nobody will care to think
> about and come with idioms that use the language to do great things, if
> they know a language feature could be always added that makes things
> "nicer".
>
> I'm not saying this particular feature should or should not be in the
> language, but I wish our community exercised considerably more restraint
> when it comes about adding new language features.

See my reply to one of your other posts:

http://forum.dlang.org/thread/bccwycoexxykfgxvedix@forum.dlang.org?page=9#post-jk9gk8:242t7k:241:40digitalmars.com

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg