[swift-evolution] Proposal: Add .times method to Integer type

[Cihat Gündüz]

I see your points and agree that this is a small feature. My thinking was that it can be added to the standard library pretty easily just because of this without real disadvantages – but it may of course not pay for itself and maybe even cause confusion.

As I stated earlier implementing the method also is about what the standard library should be and what it should not. I learned more about it now and understand that the suggested method may not be appropriate for it. I will probably stick with libraries for a `times` method in the future then.

Thank you very much Radek, Chris and the others for your feedback and consideration!

– Cihat

> Am 18.12.2015 um 21:37 schrieb Chris Lattner <clattner at apple.com>:
> 
>> 
>> On Dec 18, 2015, at 12:32 PM, Radosław Pietruszewski <radexpl at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> My personal opinion on this is that 5.times { stuff} offers no benefits over “repeat 5 { stuff }”, so I’d rather see the later (if anything).
>>> 
>>> This is all shades of gray with no clear answer.  We generally want to have standard APIs pay for themselves and avoid confusion.  I agree with DaveA’s points upthread.  If you contrast it with forEach, forEach (barely!) pays for itself by allowing things like:
>>> 
>>> 	collection.forEach(curriedMethod)
>>> 
>>> That benefit doesn’t translate to “.times".
>>> 
>>> -Chris
>> 
>> Thanks for weighing in!
>> 
>> The benefit of `5.times` vs `repeat 5` is that the former is (and can easily be) defined in Swift, not as a language-level feature. OTOH `repeat 5` is a bit more useful because it allows returning/breaking/etc.
>> 
>> But I also understand the argument that this feature isn’t worth it at all. (There’s already a lot of libraries extending stdlib with things of this sort!)
> 
> It’s important to differentiate “not interesting” vs “not appropriate to include in the swift standard library”.  I love that you can express things like that directly in the language, and if someone felt compelled to do that in their own code (or in a SPM package someday) that would be fine with me.  It just shouldn’t (again, IMO) come with swift out of the box.
> 
> -Chris

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