[swift-evolution] mutating/non-mutating suggestion from a Rubyist

[Tyler Cloutier]

That being said I try to follow most of the discussions on swift-evolution and there does seem to be a great deal of hand wringing regarding this and things related to or affected by this.

> On Apr 22, 2016, at 12:00 AM, Tyler Cloutier via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> If I recall correctly there was a thread with a similar idea which instead would create a new operator for mutation or a new way of method invocation, such that mutating methods would be called with &. or something similar. e.g.
> 
> foo&.add(5)
> 
> I think the consensus was that that was not a particularly familiar syntax and it would add a decent amount of noise.
> 
> There may have also been some issues with the grammar, I can't recall.
> 
>> On Apr 21, 2016, at 11:40 PM, Krishna Kumar via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hey
>> 
>> I think adding “&” to methods will reduce the readability of the code. Also, keyword “mutating” makes it super clear and readable that my method is mutating the values.
>> 
>> 1. mutating func add(value: Double){…}
>> 
>> 2. func add&(value: Double){…}
>> 
>> I think it’s easy to skip the information encoded into the 2nd function which is this function is mutating a value as compared to 1st. When I read 1st function I start reading with keyword “mutating” making its intentions clear to me.
>> 
>> Also, it might become a symbol nightmare with following type signature of a function-
>> 
>> func nightmare&(title: String?) -> String? -> String?{…}
>> 
>> I can see the advantage of using “&” when calling a function. It makes clear at the call site that this method is mutating but still I don’t find eliminating “mutating” a good step for the reasons mentioned above.
>> 
>> Maybe we can think of some better solution.
>> 
>> Thanks
>> 
>> -Krishna
>> 
>>> On Apr 21, 2016, at 10:38 PM, Daniel Steinberg via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> swift-evolution at swift.org
>> 
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