Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwm.edu!lll-winken!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ICSI.Berkeley.EDU!krste From: krste@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU ( Krste Asanovic) Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Subject: foo() => foo Keywords: function call syntax Message-ID: <26841@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 8 Aug 90 08:11:42 GMT Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU Reply-To: krste@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU ( Krste Asanovic) Organization: International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA Lines: 16 X-Local-Date: 8 Aug 90 01:11:42 PDT As the originator of the suggestion, I thought I ought to wrap up this discussion. Interestingly, people were divided over whether the idea was desirable in the first place. My suggestion was prompted by a desire for 1) Better implementation hiding. You shouldn't care whether foo is a public data member or a function. 2) Neater code. Empty().parentheses().are().often().unwanted().litter() . Thanks to everybody who pointed out that a.foo, where foo is a member function, already has a meaning (address of foo). Most people (including me now) agree that this would be too great a change to make to C++/C, so unless someone can spot a neat way of adding this I guess we should drop the subject from the group.