[swift-evolution] When to use argument labels (a new approach)

plx plxswift at icloud.com
Wed Feb 3 18:25:26 CST 2016 

> On Feb 3, 2016, at 5:02 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> on Wed Feb 03 2016, plx <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
>> After reading these guidelines and seeing the responses I am glad to
>> see some consideration given to argument labeling.
>> 
>> After thinking it over, I think the rules *I* would like to see can be
>> expressed very straightforwardly much more can be made much A minor
>> point, but I think it’s important to distinguish between
>> single-argument functions and multi-argument functions; doing so seems
>> to simplify the rules (even if there are more of them).
> 
> I imagine that probably leaves you with very odd results for functions of
> the form
> 
>    a.doThisTo(that, options: [ .animated ], backwards: true)
> 
> beecause this method is effectively a single-argument method with some
> auxilliary information.

This is a multi-argument function and is addressed in the multi-argument section.

> 
> Okay, this is pretty big.  I'll have to come back to it, but for now let
> me leave you with a thought and a question:
> 
> 1. Anything that takes this much explanation to describe is too big for
>   the guidelines.  If it can be condensed (a lot) it might be made to
>   work.

The proposed rules are short (and stated tersely). There’s probably a way to expand them into a 1-2 sentence/each that doesn’t need as much explanation.

> 
> 2. Does this actually produce different results than the guidelines I
>   have suggested?

On “Swift-stdlib” code I don’t think it gets different results.

On application code it falls in the camp that wants e.g. tracksWith(mediaCharacteristic...) and tracksWith(mediaType…), rather than `tracksWithMediaCharacteristic(...` and `tracksWithMediaType(…`.

Other than that, it tries to avoid any reference to grammatical rules in its formulation.

> 
> Thanks,
> Dave
> 
>> Everything that follows is my preferences, but I generally agree with
>> Erica’s suggestions in the concrete cases. I also think the emphasis
>> on quasi-grammatical rules-and-roles is something of a dead-end for
>> design guidelines and won’t include such considerations in what
>> follows.
>> 
>> ## RULES
>> 
>> ### I. Single-Argument Functions:
>> 
>> #### RULES:
>> 
>> - general rule: don’t label the first argument
>> - exceptions:
>>  - (a) the argument has a default value (`removeAll(keepCapacity: Bool = default)`)
>>  - (b) the function acts-like a constructor (covered in your rule 2)
>>  - (c) the “ecosystem rule” (see section III)
>>  - (d) the semantics of the argument are non-obvious (see below)
>> 
>> #### REMARKS:
>> 
>> I’m not sure (d) actually exists, though; every concrete example I can
>> think up either falls under rule (b) or rule (c). It may not actually
>> need to be a rule (other than as, perhaps, the underlying motivation
>> for rules (b) and (c)).
>> 
>> My intent with (d) was to address a similar concern as in Erica’s
>> `init(truncating …)` and `init(saturating …)`: “if a reasonable reader
>> would be unclear which of N plausible implementation choices you are
>> making, you may wish to label the argument, even if you only have a
>> single such function”…but, again, it’s hard to find any examples for
>> (d) that aren’t also some mixture of (b) and/or (c).
>> 
>> ### II. Multi-Argument Functions:
>> 
>> #### RULES:
>> 
>> - general rule: label all arguments
>> - exceptions:
>>  - (a) omit the first label whenever the first argument is the
>> semantic focus, and the other arguments are some mix of “details,
>> adjustments, or modifiers”
>>  - (b) omit labels entirely whenever argument-ordering is irrelevant to the output (see below)
>> 
>> #### REMARKS:
>> 
>> For (a), the assumption is that we have a general consensus that “in
>> methods for which one of the arguments is the semantic focus, that
>> argument should be the first argument”; this seems pretty widely
>> followed.
>> 
>> This rule seems to cover e.g. `addObserver(_:forKeyPath:)` and
>> `addObserver(_:selector:name:object:)` and `encodeObject(_:forKey:)`
>> and `present(_:animated:completion:)` (née
>> `presentViewController(_:animated:completion:)`), and so on.
>> 
>> A point to bring up is that under these rules, the “evolution” of a
>> name would be different: the just-so story for how
>> `addObserver(_:forKeyPath:)` came to be so-called is that it *began*
>> as `add(observer:forKeyPath:)`, but b/c the `observer` argument is the
>> semantic focus it "made sense to move `observer` into the method
>> name”; that is, the assumption is that functions like
>> `addObserver(_:forKeyPath:)` are considered to be exceptions to the
>> "base convention” and need to be justified.
>> 
>> Also note that "counter-examples" to rule (a) are anything for which
>> no one argument is easily-identifiable as the semantic focus.
>> 
>> EG, in a function like:
>> `adjudicate(plaintiff:defendant:circumstances:)` we can colorably
>> claim `circumstances` is a modifier-type parameter, but we don’t—and
>> shouldn’t!—treat either `plaintiff` or `defendant` as the
>> semantic-focus. If you have two focuses then you have no focus, as it
>> were.
>> 
>> For (b), the intuition is that whenever argument-order is irrelevant,
>> arguments should be unlabelled; thus e.g.:
>> 
>> - min/max: don’t label the arguments
>> - hypot: don’t label the arguments
>> - copysign: ideally, label the arguments
>> - atan2: ideally, label the arguments
>> 
>> …and so on. Note that these examples are all "free functions”; there
>> don’t seem to be many natural examples that *aren’t* free
>> functions. Also, please don’t be mislead by your familiarity with
>> e.g. `copysign` and/or `atan2`; they are used here to illustrate a
>> general principle (argument-ordering) only, but in practice such
>> highly-familiar “legacy functions” might be best-off given
>> special-case handling.
>> 
>> ### III. Naming Functions/Ecosystem Rule
>> 
>> The previous sections essentially assumed the function names are
>> already-chosen (in line with existing conventions) and voice specific
>> argument-labeling preferences.
>> 
>> This section deals with a few changes to how function names should be chosen.
>> 
>> The over-arching consideration is what I’ve been calling the
>> “Ecosystem rule”: whenever a method a member of a “method family"—or
>> could foreseeably become a member of such—one should aim for
>> consistency in the base name, and use argument-labels as necessary;
>> note that method families need not *require* argument labels:
>> 
>> `contains(_: Point)`
>> `contains(_: Line)`
>> `contains(_: Shape)`
>> 
>> …but they *may* require them, as for example in the `login` function
>> that has already been discussed.
>> 
>> The “ecosystem-rule" can also be applied somewhat more-broadly;
>> consider the following name suggestions:
>> 
>> `animate(duration:animations:)`
>> `animate(duration:animations:completion:)`
>> `animate(duration:delay:options:animations:completion:)`
>> `animateUsingKeyFrames(duration:delay:options:animations:completion:)`
>> `animateUsingSpring(duration:delay:damping:initialVelocity:options:animations:completion:)`
>> 
>> …where the first three form an obvious family, and the next two are
>> obvious “cousins” of that family due to choice of base names.
>> 
>> A corollary of this policy is that the rule (3) suggestion—of omitting
>> something like `…ForIdentifier...` or `(forIdentifier:…)`—will
>> sometimes be overruled out of ecosystem concerns, but I suspect this
>> will be somewhat rare in practice.
>> 
>> For example, consider the following naming suggestions for the “tracks” example:
>> 
>> // solo method (not part of any family)
>> asset.trackWith(trackID)
>> 
>> // family
>> asset.allTracksWith(mediaCharacteristic: …)
>> asset.allTracksWith(mediaType: ...
>> 
>> // the below, instead of `trackWith` or `track(
>> asset.firstTrackWith(mediaCharacteristic: ...)
>> asset.firstTrackWith(mediaType: …)
>> 
>> …or the same again, but perhaps dropping the `With` if that’s the overall preference.
>> 
>> In any case, the overall goal behind the "ecosystem rule” is that
>> similar things should be named similarly, and when semantic
>> differences are small-enough it makes sense to use argument labels to
>> make distinctions; different base names should be for functions that
>> are at least a little different from each other.
>> 
>> ## GENERAL REMARKS
>> 
>> Note that with the way I’ve tried to formulate these rules the Swift
>> standard library should largely stay as-is. In particular:
>> 
>> - methods without an identifiable “semantic focus” seem rare in a
>> standard-library context; IMHO they occur naturally, but only really
>> within UI/application-level code, not “basic building blocks” code
>> - "method families” seem somewhat unnatural in “Swift-y” code outside
>> of a small number of special-case scenarios (`contains`, various
>> `init` families, etc.); they seem more common in UI/application-level
>> code (e.g. for Objective-C interoperation), as default arguments cover
>> most of the motivating use-cases
>> 
>> …and most of the intent in these rules is to free up some room in the
>> guidelines so that application-level code can be written to the
>> guidelines without going through bizarre contortions (e.g. no one
>> would ever have *chosen* `func
>> dismissViewControllerAnimated(_:completion:)`, and we shouldn’t have
>> to chose between either (a) using equally-awkward constructs in our
>> own code or (b) being “non-guideline-compliant”).
>> 
>> ## REMARKS ON RULE 3
>> 
>> Separately, I think rule 3 is a hair too coarse to be a good guideline as-stated.
>> 
>> I would split the “asking for X by name/identifier/etc.” into two cases:
>> 
>> - (a) asking for X by some well-known/canonical $ID (e.g., such that
>> it is a *major* error if no X is found for $ID)
>> - (b) asking for X by some identifier (without a strong expectation as
>> to whether or not such an X will or won’t be found)
>> 
>> …and at least as a code-reader:
>> 
>> - I have no objection to the proposed rule (3) in scenario (a)
>> - I find rule (3) very odd in scenario (b)
>> - I think very differently about scenario (a) and scenario (b), and
>> would thus prefer that they look different
>> 
>> …and that’s my thoughts, here.
>> 
>>> On Feb 2, 2016, at 6:32 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This thread is related to the review of new API guidelines, but it's not
>>> a review thread; it's exploratory.  The goal is to come up with
>>> guidelines that:
>>> 
>>> * describe when and where to use argument labels
>>> * require labels in many of the cases people have asked for them
>>> * are understandable by humans
>>> * preserve important semantics communicated by existing APIs.
>>> 
>>> Here's what I'm thinking
>>> 
>>> 1. If and only if the first argument could complete a sentence*
>>>  beginning in the base name and describing the primary semantics of
>>>  the call, it gets no argument label:
>>> 
>>>    a.contains(b)  // b completes the phrase "a contains b"
>>>    a.mergeWith(b) // b completes the phrase "merge with b"
>>> 
>>>    a.dismiss(animated: b) // "a, dismiss b" is a sentence but 
>>>                           // doesn't describe the semantics at all, 
>>>                           // thus we add a label for b.
>>> 
>>>    a.moveTo(x: 300, y: 400) // "a, move to 300" is a sentence 
>>>                             // but doesn't describe the primary 
>>>                             // semantics, which are to move in both
>>>                             // x and y.  Thus, x gets a label.
>>> 
>>>    a.readFrom(u, ofType: b) // "a, read from u" describes
>>>                             // the primary semantics, so u gets no
>>>                             // label. b is an
>>>                             // option that tunes the primary
>>>                             // semantics
>>> 
>>>  [Note that this covers all the direct object cases and, I believe,
>>>  all the default argument cases too, so maybe that exception can be
>>>  dropped.  We still need the exceptions for full-width type
>>>  conversions and indistinguishable peers]
>>> 
>>>  Note: when there is a noun in the base name describing the role of the
>>>  first argument, we skip it in considering this criterion:
>>> 
>>>     a.addObserver(b) // "a, add b" completes a sentence describing 
>>>                      // the semantics.  "Observer" is omitted in 
>>>                      // making this determination.
>>> 
>>> * We could say "clause" here but I think making it an *independent*
>>> clause doesn't rule out any important use-cases (see
>>> https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/gram_clauses_n_phrases.html) and at that
>>> point, you might as well say "sentence," which is a more
>>> universally-understood term.
>>> 
>>> 2. Words that describe attributes of an *already-existing* instance
>>>  should go in the base name rather than in a label:
>>> 
>>>     a.tracksHavingMediaType("Wax Cylinder")      // yes
>>>     a.removeFirstTrackHavingMediaType("BetaMax") // yes
>>> 
>>>     a.tracks(mediaType: "Wax Cylinder")          // no
>>>     a.removeFirstTrack(havingMediaType: "BetaMax") // no
>>> 
>>>  [yes, we could use "With" instead of "Having", but it's more
>>>  ambiguous]
>>> 
>>>  Words that describe attributes of an instance *to be created* should
>>>  go in argument labels, rather than the base name (for parity with
>>>  initializers):
>>> 
>>>     AudioTrack(mediaType: "BetaMax")                   // initializer
>>>     trackFactory.newTrack(mediaType: "Wax Cylinder")   // yes
>>> 
>>>     trackFactory.newTrackWithMediaType("Wax Cylinder") // no
>>> 
>>> 3. (this one is separable) When the first argument is the *name* or
>>>  *identifier* of the subject in the base name, do not label it or
>>>  describe it in the base name.
>>> 
>>>     a.transitionToScene(.GreatHall)               // yes
>>>     a.transitionToSceneWithIdentifier(.GreatHall) // no
>>> 
>>>     let p = someFont.glyph("propellor")           // yes
>>>     let p = someFont.glyphWithName("propellor")   // no
>>>     let p = someFont.glyph(name: "propellor")     // no
>>> 
>>> Thoughts?
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> -Dave
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> swift-evolution at swift.org
>>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>> 
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> 
> -- 
> -Dave
> 
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