Marianne Gagnon wrote:
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) { ... }
The only problem is when a declaration but not definition is desired:
bool empty;
but oops! That defines a field. So we came up with essentially a hack:
bool empty{}
i.e. the {} means the getter is declared, but defined elsewhere.
What do you think?
I liked the original idea... but this declaration syntax is a total can of
worms. Like others pointed out, would the compiler automatically turn all
functions with empty bodies into declarations? Would empty setters be
considered a declaration? What if I actually *want*
to use an empty body as definition? Or what if I accidentally leave a body
empty when I didn't want to?
Like someone else pointed out, existing keywords could be reused :
bool empty
{
in(bool value)
{
_my_empty = value;
}
out
{
return _my_empty;
}
}
I like this quite a bit. I never wrote any compiler, granted, but I don't
think it'd be that hard to implement - and doesn't introduce any new keyword.
I'd be more than happy with that.
Or, alternatively, if you really wish to keep them separate, bool empty= { ...
} isn't intuitive, as Andrei pointed out, but is already less error-prone than
the empty-body declaration idea I believe
