[swift-evolution] [Review] SE-0093: Adding a public base property to slices

[Kevin Ballard]

On Thu, May 19, 2016, at 04:43 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution wrote:
> 	* What is your evaluation of the proposal?

The motivation sounds reasonable, as does the solution. But it seems odd to expose a property `base` on MutableRandomAccessSlice without exposing it on any other slice type. I'd much rather expose it everywhere, ideally by renaming the `_base` property as suggested in the alternatives section. Stdlib breakage can be handled on a temporary basis by providing the `_base` accessor as a computed property that returns `base`, though of course the goal should be to remove this entirely (or hopefully not have it at all if there's not too much stdlib breakage). And such a change should still be purely additive from the perspective of third-party code.

> 	* Is the problem being addressed significant enough to warrant a
>           change to Swift?

Yes. This is a relatively minor change but it allows for better performance.

> 	* Does this proposal fit well with the feel and direction of
>           Swift?

Yes.

> 	* If you have used other languages or libraries with a similar
>           feature, how do you feel that this proposal compares to those?

I can't think of any languages with this offhand.

> 	* How much effort did you put into your review? A glance, a
>           quick reading, or an in-depth study?

A quick reading.

-Kevin Ballard