On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 09:39:41 -0400, Michel Fortin
<michel.for...@michelf.com> wrote:
On 2009-08-02 03:43:43 -0400, Walter Bright <newshou...@digitalmars.com>
said:
The alternative is to have a unique syntax for properties. Ideally, the
syntax should be intuitive and mimic its use. After much fiddling, and
based on n.g. suggestions, Andrei and I penciled in:
bool empty { ... }
void empty=(bool b) { ... }
Looking at it more carefully, this looks like an invitation to omit
parenthesis for functions with no argument. I mean, look at this and
tell me what it is?
T transform { ... }
Is this a transform property (returning and affine transform) or an
action function returning transform? I'd guess it's a property since it
has no parenthesis, but nothing makes this very clear.
And could you do this? Would Andrei be tempted by this?
void popFront { ... }
Note that I'm brigning this as an observation. Style guidelines can be
written mandating parenthesis for actions functions, which means my
problem of writing a coherent naming guideline is solved. But who read
the style guidelines?
While I like this syntax, the "getProperty()"/"setProperty()" syntax
(and also the "property" keyword syntax) has one advantage over this
one: it forces the interface to explicitly say "this is a getter/setter"
or "this is a property", which I expect would reduce abuses. It's the
same difference between as "opAdd" vs. "op+".
I also like the idea of omitting parenthesis for functions with no
argument.
