[swift-evolution] [swift-evolution-announce] [Review] SE-0055 Make unsafe pointer nullability explicit using Optional

[Russ Bishop]

You said it better than I could. 

+1 on the proposal. 


Russ

On Mar 24, 2016, at 3:56 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

>>    * What is your evaluation of the proposal?
> 
> I'm in favor. The ability of UnsafePointer to represent nil pointers has always been an odd duck, introducing an unmarked (and undocumented!) implicit trap in `memory` (now `pointee`), preventing the use of Optional constructs, and making Swift pointer types less expressive than C, which is just *wrong*. Making nullability explicit is a good move.
> 
>>    * Is the problem being addressed significant enough to warrant a change to Swift?
> 
> Yes.
> 
>>    * Does this proposal fit well with the feel and direction of Swift?
> 
> Yes.
> 
>>    * If you have you used other languages or libraries with a similar feature, how do you feel that this proposal compares to those?
> 
> The nullability specifiers introduced recently in clang have markedly removed my Objective-C code, both by better documenting system APIs and by forcing me to improve my own calls.
> 
>>    * How much effort did you put into your review? A glance, a quick reading, or an in-depth study?
> 
> Read the proposal, participated in discussion.
> 
> -- 
> Brent Royal-Gordon
> Architechies
> 
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