On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 11:51 AM Robert Allan Schwartz via Std-Proposals <
std-proposals_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Header <stop_token>:
>
> [[nodiscard]] friend bool operator==(const stop_token& lhs, const
> stop_token& rhs) noexcept;
>
> I would have thought that this should be:
>
> friend [[nodiscard]] bool operator==(const stop_token& lhs, const
> stop_token& rhs) noexcept;
>
> i.e. the attribute pertains to the function, not to the friend declaration,
> but I was told that an attribute cannot appear in this position,
> hence it must be as it is in <stop_token>.
>
> Perhaps the grammar should be amended to allow an attribute in this
> position?
>
Hi Robert,
(Unlike your other thread, this one *is* a feature request / behavioral
change, and thus would have to be proposed as a paper and discussed in
committee; even if you had wording for it, it should *never* be submitted
as a pull request. Just so we're clear on that. :))

This proposal lacks motivation. You're asking to *complicate* the grammar,
right? This will create burdens for the committee/specifiers, for compiler
vendors/implementors, for users who now have to deal with yet another
little difference between C++2b and C++2c. Those are all costs. And the
benefit is... what? That you now get a *stylistic choice* of two different
places it's legal to put attributes like `[[nodiscard]]`?
Alternatively, just don't do any of that; and then the only cost is to (an
ever-decreasing number of) programmers who would stylistically prefer to
write `friend [[nodiscard]] bool` but are forced by the simple grammar of
C++ to write `[[nodiscard]] friend bool`. That's a much smaller cost than
all the costs above; and it has all the same benefits plus two — compiler
enforcement of the preferred style (the alternative style is rejected by
the compiler, hooray!), and its already-being-implemented-as-the-status-quo
(so vendors don't need to do any work).

my $.02,
–Arthur