Compiler hints, inlining and syntax consistency

[Jakob Ovrum]

On Saturday, 28 December 2013 at 11:38:38 UTC, Ola Fosheim 
Grøstad wrote:
> I think it would be useful to have a dedicated syntax for 
> symbols that a naive compiler can ignore, that is, for compiler 
> hints. I'd consider "@disable" and "pragma" a compiler hint, 
> but not "@property"

@disable is definitely not something a compiler should be allowed 
to ignore.

> length() @warningonuse "in this class the length-function is 
> O(n), consider xyz instead"

This is a terrible example - in D it's generally accepted that 
such a `length` function should NOT be provided at all. If it 
provides anything that standard algorithms like `walkLength` 
don't, then it must at least be named something other than 
`length`.

With this philosophy in mind and with the lack of any good 
examples, I think it's possible that @warningonuse is in fact 
undesirable.