[swift-evolution] Proposal: Re-instate mandatory self for accessing instance properties and functions

Rudolf Adamkovič salutis at me.com
Fri Dec 4 16:34:38 CST 2015


To be a little more specific, here’s a real-world example:

1. Say there’s a method in my class that contains a local variable called “title”.
2. After a while, I decide to remove a part of this method, including the “title” variable.
3. Everything compiles and seems to work just fine.
4. However, I forgot to remove one more line that used the “title” variable.
5. Because we’re in a UIViewController subclass, I'm unknowingly modifying view controller’s title.

R+

> On 4 Dec 2015, at 22:51, Rudolf Adamkovic <salutis at me.com> wrote:
> 
> +1
> 
> 1) I actually encountered at least two bugs in my app introduced by this implicit "self" behavior. It can be dangerous and hard to track down.
> 
> 2) Also when, say fine-tuning UIKit animations, I find myself wasting enormous amount of time adding and removing "self".
> 
> R+
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On 04 Dec 2015, at 22:19, David Hart <david at hartbit.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I don't understand the reasoning behind removing the need to access instance properties and functions using self. Swift has always seemed to prefer readability to brevity and the feature makes the distinction between local and instance variables/functions crystal clear. Any good reason I shouldn't go on with the proposition?
>> 
>> Just as example, my proposition makes the following piece of code illegal:
>> 
>> ```
>> struct FooBar {
>>   var foo: String = "foobar"
>> 
>>   func bar() {
>>       print(foo) // compiler error
>>       print(self.foo) // compiler happy
>>   }
>> 
>>   func bar2() {
>>       bar() // compiler error
>>       self.bar() // compiler happy
>>   }
>> }
>> ```
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