[swift-evolution] ed/ing, InPlace, Set/SetAlgebra naming resolution

[Daniel Steinberg]

I was a fan of the inPlace variants because for me it was more clear than remembering sort from sorted.

Is there a reason for the mutating versions of these at all? 

I would say that setA = setA.union(setB) is most expressive of intent. It makes it absolutely clear that setA is being replaced by something.

Having a mutating or non-mutating version of an operation but not both would be less confusing IMO.

Methods such as append() and remove() could still be mutating as there has never been non-mutating version of them. Or the suggested .= operator could be used and all of these methods could become non-mutating.

i.e.

setA .= union(setB)

arrayC .= elementToAdd

arrayD .= removeAll()

where A .= method() means A = A.method()

Daniel

> On Feb 13, 2016, at 2:32 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> on Sat Feb 13 2016, plx <swift-evolution at swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>> wrote:
> 
>> On a skim, if there’s a specific explanation as to *why* `inPlace` is
>> a now a no-go, I don’t see it. 
> 
> Several justifications were given:
> 
> * Several people have an “ick” reaction when they see it.
> 
> * It's not in the guidelines.
> 
> * If we add it to the guidelines, it will only be as fallback
>  last-resort alternative.
> 
> * If one of the three main collection types can't conform to the
>  recommendations of the non-last-resort guidelines, the guidelines are
>  a failure.
> 
>> I can’t say I like the proposed changes
>> very much, and I definitely don’t like some of the more-creative
>> suggestions.
>> 
>> It’s hard to offer help when it’s not clear what was deemed
>> problematic about the existing (and “perfectly fine with me”!) names.
>> 
>> Separately, can I ask here why SetAlgebra protocol doesn’t contain an
>> *overridable* method like `func intersects(other: Self) -> Bool`?
>> 
>> (Note: I am *well-aware* that `a intersects b <=> !(a and b are disjoint)`).
> 
> There's no point in providing an override if there's no chance of it
> being better than the default implementation.
> 
>> That absence has been puzzling me ever whichever release of Swift
>> first introduced this protocol, particularly since e.g. both
>> `isSubsetOf` and `isSupersetOf` are individually-overridable.
>> 
>> (Likewise, but less so, I do wonder why the protocol doesn’t contain
>> *overridable* `isStrictSubset` and `isStrictSuperset` functions,
>> either...).
> 
> Same reasoning, but we may have mistakenly decided there was no chance
> of optimization.  If so, please open a ticket.
> 
>>> On Feb 11, 2016, at 10:52 AM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Hi All,
>>> 
>>> The API guidelines working group took up the issue of the InPlace suffix
>>> yesterday, and decided that it was not to be used anywhere in the
>>> standard library.  We are planning to apply the changes shown here
>>> <https://gist.github.com/dabrahams/d872556291a3cb797bd5> to the API of
>>> SetAlgebra (and consequently Set) to make it conform to the guidelines
>>> under development.
>>> 
>>> Comments welcome as usual,
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> -Dave
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> swift-evolution mailing list
>>> swift-evolution at swift.org
>>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> swift-evolution mailing list
>> swift-evolution at swift.org
>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
> 
> -- 
> -Dave
> 
> _______________________________________________
> swift-evolution mailing list
> swift-evolution at swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>
> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution <https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20160214/40a73586/attachment.html>