[swift-evolution] [Pitch] Adding a Self type name shortcut for static member access

[Timothy Wood]

> On Apr 4, 2016, at 11:00 AM, Erica Sadun via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> Are there reasons that prevent using `Self` as a synonym for an instance's type name?
> 
[...]
> 
> I'd like to see `Self.staticMember` introduced as a synonym for `TypeName.staticMember`.

I would love to see a way to get the type of the "enclosing thing at compile time”. In my particular case, I’m using the type as a generic parameter to tag a created resource with something like:

class Client: PropertyOwner {
	let intProperty = Client.property(“name”, Int(0))
}

where PropertyOwner has a static property<Owner, DataType>(...)

With `Self` meaning the static version of the thing being compiled, I could at least write:

class Client: PropertyOwner {
	let intProperty = Self.property(“name”, Int(0))
}

which would have the benefit of being harder to mess up due to copy-pasting between different PropertyOwner implementors.

I would love to be able to omit the `Self.` entirely, but instances can’t call functions on themselves at init time, and instances don’t see static funcs, so that probably won’t fly =)

The particular spelling of ‘static self` doesn’t matter too much to me, so if `Self` needs to be the runtime type of the executing class then maybe `StaticSelf` could be added.

-tim

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