Continuing from another very deep thread...
On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:43:12 -0500, Lutger <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 01/29/2010 07:01 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
...
How about @property? When you add a @property to a function it can be
called as an assignment. @property does not touch the calling of
no-argument functions.
Are there any problems with that?
Such a "@property is just for the writing" design will leave @property
adepts very unhappy, I think. Even I admit that such a rule will be very
inconsistent, albeit workable.
Andrei
It's not inconsistent, at most just a bit confusing on the call site.
What @property does is still very clear:
- same syntax as fields for zero and one parameter functions
- function call syntax *not* ok
- mangled differently and recognizable by ide's (think gui programmming
and ui design tools) and documentation tools. Probably also for
metaprogramming.
Additionally at the call site you can choose to drop parens for zero
argument functions, author of those functions has no control over that.
This feature is now orthogonal to @property and may or may not end up in
style guidelines. It's also one of those things a smart IDE could help
you with (did the author really want this to be a property or not?)
I think that solves most of the issues @property was designed for.
This is slightly different than Pelle's idea in that @property applied to
a no-arg function requires no parentheses.
Hm... what about restricting functions that allow optional parentheses to
those with no arguments *and* which return void? That way they are truly
orthogonal to properties.
I can't say I find the parentheses or lack thereof that distracting or
ambiguous on such functions. When a statement is just a symbol without
any operation on it, and has no return value, it's pretty obvious that you
intend to call a function. The only issue is for words that could be
interpreted as properties given the right context, might they be
interpreted by a reviewer as a coding error. I'm willing to live with
that if it makes others happy.
This allows popFront to omit the parens :)
-Steve
