[swift-evolution] thoughts on 'inout'

[Brent Royal-Gordon]

> My gut reaction to typing 'inout' in front of every parameter I want to call by reference is that it makes code look rather waffly.
> 
> So I'm reflecting an idea on this:
> 
> 
> Use = to assign values.
> 
> Use : to associate variables.
> 
> 
> 
> A function declaration would look like this:
> 
> func addInt(add intToAdd = Int, to counterInt : Int ) {
>     counterInt += intToAdd
> }

This doesn't work with unlabeled parameters. I think it also makes inout parameters too invisible; they have unusual semantics and ought to be marked. I don't think it's a good idea to overload `=` for parameter passing; it requires different spacing to look right, and the change would alter literally every method call in existing code. `=` is also semantically heavier than `:`, and yet it's being used in the lighter role here. And I think it makes inout parameters too "easy"—they're a pretty rare case and it's okay to require more than zero extra characters to declare them.

In short, -1.

-- 
Brent Royal-Gordon
Architechies