[swift-evolution] Idea: change "@noreturn func f()" to "func f() noreturn"

[Radosław Pietruszewski]

> On 25 Feb 2016, at 23:47, Joe Groff <jgroff at apple.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Feb 25, 2016, at 2:43 PM, Radosław Pietruszewski <radexpl at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 25 Feb 2016, at 23:40, Joe Groff <jgroff at apple.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Feb 25, 2016, at 2:40 PM, Radosław Pietruszewski <radexpl at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Ah, that’s a neat idea! Not sure it’s an improvement though to have a magic type that changes how the compiler treats your method, rather than a rather explicit *attribute* on the method…
>>> 
>>> There's no magic. If you can't construct a value of your return type, you can't return.
>>> 
>>> -Joe
>> 
>> 
>> The magic is somewhere else. Calling a @noreturn function allows you to do things you can’t otherwise do:
>> 
>> func foo() -> Int {
>> 	fatalError()
>> }
> 
> I see. The unreachable code check arguably ought to also accept this if fatalError returns any uninhabited type, since it'll never be able return if that's the case.
> 
> -Joe

Would that actually be useful today? (i.e. aside from your idea) To me, having a NoReturn return type seems more magic and less obvious than an attribute.

— Radek