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Delphi on Win32 Gets Attributes

August 18th, 2009 Leave a comment Go to comments

News on new features in the next version of Delphi keeps coming in. So far nothing really exciting has been announced, until Delphi on Win32 gets Attributes.

Source code meta data may seem like a tiny addition but it is truly huge. The fact that Java “stole” attributes from .Net (and called them annotations) is an indicator of its importance. The greatest benefit is that it allows for language extension without extending the language, and possible use cases are endless.

For me, this feature alone is a reason to upgrade.

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  1. sergk
    August 18th, 2009 at 09:36 | #1
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    I wonder if D could have custom attributes as well. There is CTFE which fits perfectly for the task. The only (syntactical) part missed is python like notation of decorators (PEP 318). And python’s choice of “at symbol” (@) is excellent candidate for D as well.

  2. Hans-Eric
    August 18th, 2009 at 13:03 | #2
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    @sergk
    D has a history of adopting popular (and good) language constructions, so I’m sure they will incorporate attributes as well.
    I’m not familiar with Python but Java uses the @ symbol as well. I have no preference between the Java or the .Net notation although I kind of think the Java version is a bit cleaner.

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