[swift-dev] Hello!/Obs. Language Elements/extent Swift for loops/Tuples init. APL in Swift

[Ted F.A. van Gaalen]

Hello. This is my first time here, so please allow me to introduce myself.. thank you.
Grab a chair. Coffee? 
I've worked with many programming languages since 1979. Interesting years.
Fortran, Cobol, PL/1 C, CSP, C++, Java, Microprocessor, Assembler, Rexx, Pascal, 
Smalltalk, APL,  etc. Objective C, and also Swift since it became available. 
OOD/OOP is my Holy Grail: the thing we found "somehow-something-is-missing-but-dunno-what?”
before it came along :o)  My current creativity is RavelNotes, an ObjC/Swift hybrid iPad app 
and under construction is a 3D game app with Swift/SceneKit for Apple TV. 
I am 65: Now that I am retiring, app development will be the main thing for me to do 
because it is fun and  also because I simply cannot stop making software… 
and I have lots of time for it.. without any quality compromising deadlines...


I am quite happy with Swift! It connects really good with the stuff that is already inside 
my head allowing me to transfer my ideas and creativity into the virtual world without
too much hassle in-between. Swift is still new, but right from the start it has everything 
I need and could wish for!  There is really not that much missing, if any. 
Thanks to Chris Lattner and team: you guys did a really amazing job!  

Thanks for reading.. 
still here? OK
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1. On removing (possibly) superfluous language elements

IMHO it is nearly impossible to estimate whether or not a certain language element
will or will not useful now or in the future. It's like Lego. So don't remove bricks from the 
box that you might think will not be used anymore, just because a quick scan in the 
neighborhood in GitCity  reveals that at the moment no others are using this kinda bricks...

So why not keep these things like i++ i--
and the C-style for loop? More important imho: do the best to maintain downward compatibility 
e.g. save us from modifying 10000 source files written in 2016 in say 2021 when Swift 8.0 arrives..

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2: Swift "for" statement: why not add this variants:
 (to get rid of reverse, strides, generators..and other indirect stuff)

for i in 12 to 0 by -2 

for v:Double in x1 to -2.8 by -0.1   

Swift could handle that implicitly. Most languages have these loops.
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3 . I beg you! Please, please, please implement implicit conversion between Floats/CGFloats/Double..
Why does one need to convert floating point vars explicitly?
Yes, one can loose precision, but we know that, don't we? 
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4 Tuples:  please take a look at this code:  

 static var z: UInt8 = 0  // initalize tuple with 256 UInt8 values, bytes:
    
    // Silly: why not an array instead of this.. a tuple is needed.. length must be exact 256..
    // know of no other way to create a tuple with 256 elements...
    var midiDataTuple = (z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z,
 z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, 
z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, 
z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, 
z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z,
 z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z, z)

    
    func midiSend(status: Int, val1: Int, val2 :Int)
    {
        var midipacket = MIDIPacket()
        
        midipacket.timeStamp = 0
        midipacket.length    = 3
        midipacket.data      = midiDataTuple  //<-=<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
        
        midipacket.data.0 = UInt8(status)
        midipacket.data.1 = UInt8(val1  )
        midipacket.data.2 = UInt8(val2  )
        
        var midipacketlist = MIDIPacketList(numPackets: 1, packet: midipacket)
        
        MIDIReceived(midiSource, &midipacketlist)
    }
    
I can't treat tuples as an array, which in this case would be handy to initialize all the tuple elements.

IfTrue: Why are tuples the only data type to use for unmanaged byte arrays? 

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Sideways: fun & inspiration: take a look at APL.. [I'll wait here]  this language uses mostly symbols for operations. 
E.g. it has an excellent set of chars for Set operations. To experiment with this,  replaced Xcode's source font with 
an APLFont and then define operator extensions for some APL characters like e.g. Ro to get or alter the shape 
of a multi dimensional array    or  +/   to sum a vector.


Regards
Ted

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