OK, thanks, I understand that argument now.

I am not sure though if it makes much sense to design our syntax around that, given that we *already* know we can't (and don't want to) achieve this kind of seamless backwards-compatibility in C++, and by extension in any code shared between C and C++, so only codebases in pure C would benefit from such a possibility. And you won't get backwards-compatibility with older compilers, only with newer compilers in "old standard" mode, because every existing compiler I'm aware of rejects the colon between [[...]] as a syntax error today.

However, my understanding is that with either of the syntax proposals, we would be able to achieve backwards-compability with older compilers via wrapping the whole feature in macros, in exactly the same way we do for other new features that add new syntax.

I am really interested whether anyone here has a preference for one syntax and against the other for any other reason that does *not* have to do with ignorability?

Cheers,
Timur

> On 6 Oct 2023, at 19:35, Jens Maurer <jens.maurer_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> 
>
>> On 06/10/2023 18.32, Timur Doumler wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On 6 Oct 2023, at 19:28, Jens Maurer <jens.maurer_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>>> If that is indeed the case, then the attribute-like syntax for Contracts would not be ignorable in C, either.
>>>
>>> Right, but the argument is that implementations can add the small extension
>>> to parse-ignore ":" in that spot right now, and then be future-proof for
>>> ignoring future attribute-like contracts.
>>
>> Right. Yes, I can follow that argument. But that begs the question: what is so special or different about Contracts that you want this feature in particular to be backwards-compatibly-ignorable by older compilers, considering that we don't do that for any other new language feature where we add new syntax to the language?
>
> The argument, as far as I understand, is that contracts in particular are well
> suited to be retrofitted on existing code bases that need to be compatible
> with older compilers / language versions.
>
> For any other new language feature, you can just choose to ignore it for your
> meant-to-be-compatible code base. But contracts are so valuable to find
> bugs in existing software, so you want them everywhere ASAP.
>
> (I'm just repeating an argument I think I heard. This is not my opinion.)
>
> Jens
>