On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:43:50 -0500, Pelle Månsson
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 01/29/2010 07:10 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
Note in the anecdote above, both users would have
been satisfied if you could *only* call empty without parentheses.
That's a good point. The writeln = 3; is also a good point. :)
What I'm trying to defend is the ability to call non-property functions
without the parens.
I find this:
array.stable_sort;
file.detach;
range.popFront;
to look less noisy, clearer and just plain sexier than the respective
versions with the parens.
You've cited three functions where the function names cannot be
misinterpreted as properties. This is not the case for all function
names. If you wish to have a way to specify a function can be called
either way, then I think you also need a way to specify that a function
can only be called with parentheses.
I don't disagree that the above is unambiguous, but there are examples
where it is ambiguous.
f.read;
does this mean read f, or is it an accidental noop fetching a property
indicating f is read?
Requiring parentheses also allows you to force meanings where they would
otherwise be interpreted as properties:
f.next();
Looks like it advances f, even though next isn't a verb. Without the
parentheses, it looks like a noop access of a property.
I'm not too concerned with requiring () on your examples because it's
inconsequential to me -- having parentheses isn't *less* clear than not
having them. I don't mind if you wish to allow these calls without
parens, but there has to still be a way to force the parens.
-Steve
