FAQ for newbies who see pure @safe nothrow @nogc

[Jonathan Marler via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 29 January 2015 at 15:39:18 UTC, matovitch wrote:
> Yes, if @ttributes are better because you can create identifier 
> with the same name why aren't they used everywhere ? By the 
> way, the denomination makes sense too : function attibutes are 
> either built-in or user defined attributes. But const can be a 
> qualifier or a function/method attribute that is two very 
> different things...maybe not beeing able to use const as a 
> function attribute but @const would make more sense ?

The purpose of this thread wasn't to re-discuss what was already 
discussed.  The answer to your idea can be found in the other 
thread 
http://forum.dlang.org/post/rtwbtxigfeupvykpbamh@forum.dlang.org. 
  It's gonna be a long read so I'll summarize what I believe is 
the correct answer.

The problem we are trying to solve is that the function 
attributes are inconsistent.  Some use @ like "@safe" and "@nogc" 
and some don't like "pure" and "nothrow".

So one idea is to require an '@' symbol in front of all of them 
for the sake of consistency.  The problem with this idea is that 
you've now introduced inconsistency somewhere else.  Every 
keyword that you put an '@' symbol in front of, will be used 
somewhere else without an '@' symbol.  Like this:

abstract class MyClass { }
@abstract void myfunc();

See the inconsistency?  You're gonna end up with alot of these 
types of inconsistencies. In addition, you've made the rule of 
when to use the '@' symbol more complex.  Before it was, "Use '@' 
if it is not a keyword".  Now it's, "Use '@' if it is not a 
keyword except when it's a function attribute".  This definition 
will likely be made worse since people will want to solve the 
newly introduced inconsistencies.  So the new definition will 
become, "Use '@' if it is a keyword except if it's a function 
attribute or a class specifier".  By the time you solve every 
inconsistency you'll have made every usage of every keyword use 
the '@' symbol.  Then the rule will be "Always use the '@' 
symbol".

This will definitely be included on the FAQ :)  I'll reword it 
and modify it but I agree that people will want an explanation 
for this.