Yearly "can we please have void foo() auto" post

[Paul Backus]

On Thursday, 27 July 2023 at 15:22:45 UTC, Anonymouse wrote:
> I love `auto`, it makes my life easier. The compiler infers 
> what it can and I primarily enjoy the bonuses of `@safe` 
> without having to annotate it manually.
>
> But it's not always applicable.
[...]
> Can we please have `void foo() auto`? It would behave as `auto 
> foo()` does, except enforce the return type. As a bonus we'd 
> also get `string bar() auto`.

IMO the correct solution is to just make the compiler infer 
attributes like `@safe` for *all* functions, with exceptions only 
in cases like `extern (C)` or virtual class/interface methods 
where the full implementation is not available, or if the user 
explicitly opts out (e.g., with something like `@noinfer`).

I have a half-written draft DIP for this that I plan to get back 
to once Mike Parker announces that the DIP queue is open again. 
If anyone else is working on this or wants to collaborate, please 
let me know!