[swift-evolution] Type-safe selectors

[Kevin Ballard]

On Sat, Dec 5, 2015, at 04:30 AM, Michel Fortin wrote:
> Like this:
> 
> 	view.action = "_doSomething_UniqueSelector1234_currentModuleName_blahblah"
> 
> 	extension NSObject {
> 		func _doSomething_UniqueSelector1234_currentModuleName_blahblah() {
> 			let target = self
> 			(target as! MyObject).doSomething()
> 		}
> 	}
> 
> (Joe Groff suggested it first.) This simply assumes the receiver will
> derive from NSObject. You also need to set a non-nil target. And note
> that the closure is context-free, meaning you can't capture variables
> with it.

How is this type-safe? You're using as! in there (and silently ignoring
the message if the receiver is wrong wouldn't be any better). If I send
a selector to the wrong receiver, it's still going to crash.

This comes back to my fundamental argument, which is that
@convention(selector) looks like it's type-safe, but there's so many
holes and so many implicit coercions that need to be added that you can
drive a gigantic truck full of unsafety right through it without even
noticing.

-Kevin Ballard