[swift-evolution] Brace syntax

[Charles Constant]

Andrey's post encourages me to veer into the merits of significant
whitespace vs braces. This is probably unwise of me, since we're not all
going to agree any time soon, but I can't resist pointing out an example:

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

var foo: Int
{
    get
    {
        return _foo
    }
    set
    {
        _foo = newValue
    }
}

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

var foo: Int:
    get:
        return _foo
    set:
        _foo = newValue

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

It's obvious no programmer is going to be consistent about braces in the
first example - it's absurdly verbose. So with braces in Swift, pretty much
everything you write carries the overhead of "what inconsistent way will i
format the braces for this code?" For me, I'd rather throw out the (largely
redundant) noise, and stick with just the content.






On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 3:59 AM, Andrey Tarantsov via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> I don't know many people who have experienced a large variety (8+?) of
> programming languages and prefer Python's forced indentation
>
>
> Count me as one. I'd prefer Swift to have Python-style indentation, just
> on the grounds of braces being stupid (why would you want to enter the same
> scope information *twice*)?
>
> So +1 from me, although I don't suffer from the braces at all.
>
> I do want to point out that the amount of code that fits on a screen *is* fairly
> important, and you should keep your methods short, so one less brace per
> method means a couple more methods per screen.
>
> This would also free up braces to mean “closure” in 100% of cases, which
> is good for consistency.
>
> But it would introduce it's share of problems for sure, so I don't feel
> strongly about this proposal.
>
> I also admit that braces are generally preferred, for some mysterious
> reason that I hope a believer can articulate here. Take Sass, for example;
> it has both an indentation-based syntax and a braces-based syntax, and the
> latter one seems way more popular.
>
> A.
>
>
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