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

[Dan Loewenherz]

> > On Dec 15, 2015, at 8:10 PM, Kenny Leung via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> > I think the mandatory self problem is analogous to never wanting to use x!, as! or try!. If you restrict yourself to always using self.whatever, it is not unusual to someone else, and if they leave off the compiler flag or pragma that enforces this, the code will still compile.

The big difference is that “!” is instantly recognizable as a code
smell (because there’s an operator which makes you feel bad for using
it) and implicit usage of “self” is not at all, (because, well, it’s
implicit). If you want to eliminate issues of force-unwrapping in your
codebase—even discounting any compiler flags—you can simply search for
the exclamation mark or use a simple regex and replace. There’s no
similar easy way to address implied self.

Indeed, both the ability to force unwrap and use of implied self can
lead to bugs, but they’re of a different variety. By force unwrapping,
you know that you’re opening up the possibility of a nil reference.
The bugs stemming from implied self are much more sneaky, bizarre, and
hard to track down (again, there is nothing that can give it away,
such as an operator).

Perhaps most importantly, any developer can make a mistake, and
despite their tendencies towards explicit self, can forget to use if
it’s a situation where its presence would prevent a bug. At least with
“?” and “!”, you’re forced to make a decision (and one of those
decisions makes you feel somewhat guilty…).

Dan