[swift-evolution] Request for Discussion: Setup closures

[Sean Heber]

> On Dec 4, 2015, at 3:27 PM, Joe Groff <jgroff at apple.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Dec 4, 2015, at 1:24 PM, Erica Sadun <erica at ericasadun.com <mailto:erica at ericasadun.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> PROBLEM: With many Apple-supplied classes, typical initializers fail to fully set up an instance for use.  Here's one example:
>> 
>> let task = NSTask()
>> task.launchPath = "/usr/bin/mdfind"
>> task.arguments = ["kMDItemDisplayName == *.playground"]
>> task.standardOutput = pipe
>> 
>> Here's another:
>> 
>> let questionLabel = UILabel()
>> questionLabel.textAlignment = .Center
>> questionLabel.font =  UIFont(name:"DnealianManuscript", size: 72)
>> questionLabel.text = currentQuestion.questionText
>> questionLabel.numberOfLines = 0
>> 
>> You end up with stodgy repetitive code that turns into a blocky hard-to-follow clump. Here are some of my complaints:
>> This code feels unnecessarily redundant 
>> This code visually stacks. The task/task/task and questionLabel/questionLabel/questionLabel blocks draw attention away from the actual set-up these lines of code are intended to do. 
>> The extra symbol verbiage goes against common Swift style. For example, when the context is clear, prefer .whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet to NSCharacterSet.whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet.
>> Further, if you have many instances to set up there's no clear way to differentiate unrelated set-up groups other than inserting whitespace gaps or building custom factory functions.
>> 
>> PROPOSED SOLUTION: What do you think about creating setup closures  that modify initializers and automatically introduce self-references. For example the NSTask() initialization might look something like this instead:
>> 
>> let task = NSTask()>>{
>>     launchPath = "/usr/bin/mdfind"
>>     arguments = ["kMDItemDisplayName == *.playground"]
>>     standardOutput = pipe
>> }
>> 
>> In this example, the braces are scoped to the instance as self, enabling the properties to entirely drop their prefixes and be grouped together for set-up.
> 
> In Smalltalk and Dart, you can do this with method cascades, which apply multiple methods to the same 'self'. In Dart they use '..' for this:
> 
> let task = NSTask()
>   ..launchPath = "..."
>   ..arguments = [...]
>   ..standardOutput = pipe
> 
> The nice thing about that is that it's a bit more generally applicable than just initialization.
> 
> -Joe

I would also be in favor of something more generally applicable rather than making initialization more special. I think I prefer the block-style over Dart’s approach. Smalltalk uses semicolons for this, if I recall. I’m not sure I like using a special operator. I’m obviously a keyword guy.. :P

with let task = NSTask() {
    launchPath = "/usr/bin/mdfind"
    arguments = ["kMDItemDisplayName == *.playground"]
    standardOutput = pipe
}

Also valid:

with someVariable {
    func1()
    func2(“etc")
}

Which would call func1() and func2() on the someVariable instance (which I think would be quite expected).

l8r
Sean