On 2010-09-26 03:56:32 -0400, Don <nos...@nospam.com> said:
I was just referring to the "without having to add new keywords" bit.
And a fairly general comment to the whole thread (not just this post).
I meant that __keywords are available, and the argument that @ provides
a namespace for keywords is completely wrong, and utterly dreadful. I'm
a bit disturbed that people are even thinking in that way.
People (including me) are thinking that way because there is no sane
semantic definition of what the @ syntax stands for. I'll grant you one
thing: @attributes are only used to affect declarations in one way or
another, so as long as this stands they're more limited in purpose than
keywords in general. But beyond that, what makes @ different from
another namespace for keywords?
See also the August 28 post by Herb Sutter:
http://herbsutter.com/
"My biggest (but not only) beef with C++0x [[attributes]] is that the
standard itself was abusing attributes as disguised [[keywords]].
Attributes are acceptable as pure annotations, but they should have no
semantic effect on the program.
[snip]
it’s a clear example of adding language keywords dressed in attributes’
clothing, and not something I want to be responsible for forcing three
million C++ developers to live with until the end of time."
Unfortunately, one attribute with the @ syntax in D -- and I'd say the
flagship one as it was the first and most discussed -- is not a pure
annotation as it has a noticeable effect on semantics. I'm talking
about @property which, if it ever get implemented, changes your
function so it simulates a field. In Herb's terms, @property is clearly
a keyword in disguise.
And then you realize many keywords fit that same definition of an
attribute (deprecated, pure, nothrow...) and you're left with a very
fuzzy concept of what the @ syntax is for. We have an important keyword
disguised as an @attribute (@property) and attributes disguised as
keywords for historical reason (deprecated, pure, nothrow...). Whatever
the @ syntax was supposed to stand for, it's pretty messed up right now.
There's also confusion about the term "attribute" itself. Try reading
that page and come with a sane definition of what is an attribute in D.
<http://digitalmars.com/d/2.0/attribute.html>
--
Michel Fortin
michel.for...@michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
