[swift-evolution] [swift-dev] There should be no reserved words (keywords) ?

[Jordan Rose]

> On Mar 4, 2016, at 10:12, Joe Groff via swift-dev <swift-dev at swift.org> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On Mar 4, 2016, at 4:43 AM, Ted F.A. van Gaalen via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello, 
>> 
>> reserved words:
>> 
>> In short:
>>                  -=  there should be none =-
>> 
>> A compiler should have enough intelligence 
>> to determine from the statement’s context 
>> if words are used as a keywords or not.  
>> 
>> Like e.g. in PL/1 as I posted here before.
>> 
>> What’s your opinion?
>> 
>> Kind Regards, Ted.
> 
> We're getting close. We already allow arbitrary keywords as argument labels, and Doug has proposed allowing them after `.` accesses as well, so you can freely define and use methods named foo.default(in:if:else:). Keywords at that point only interfere with the "root" identifier of a chain, and you could introduce module, type, or instance qualification to avoid that problem (saying Module.default instead of `default`).

Whenever possible, we should endeavour to make source code readable by humans; being easy for the compiler is nice, but shouldn't be a primary goal.

Humans reading code will have an easier time if identifiers consistently refer to the same thing. This doesn't always happen—methods on different types, methods shadowing top-level functions, etc—but in general we should not encourage people to change the meaning of symbols.

-1 from me.

Jordan


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