[swift-evolution] Trial balloon: conforming sizeof, sizeofValue, etc. to naming guidelines

[Xiaodi Wu]

On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 7:00 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

>
> on Thu Apr 28 2016, Xiaodi Wu <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
> > We all know and love sizeof(), but given that it's different from its C
> > counterpart anyway, shouldn't these conform to Swift naming guidelines?
> In other
> > words, after SE-0006, shouldn't these names be as follows?
> >
> > ```
> > size<T>(of: T.Type)
> > size<T>(ofValue: T)
> > stride<T>(of: T.Type)
> > stride<T>(ofValue: T)
> > align<T>(of: T.Type)
> > align<T>(ofValue: T)
> > ```
> >
> > There are obvious issues with two different things named `stride`, but
> IMO
> > that's best addressed by renaming one of them; the real problem is that
> the word
> > stride is used in two different ways already. Thoughts?
>
> These functions correspond to C and LLVM primitives and we consciously
> kept those names because they are terms of art.


I recognize that this was the intention behind preserving the names as-is.
The thought process behind proposing a renaming was as follows:

* The Swift counterpart to C `sizeof()` is `strideof(_:)`. Thus, although
the *names* are treated as terms of art, not all of them are used to mean
the art for which they are terms (if you will). To reinforce the separation
between C primitives and these Swift functions, C `offsetof()` has no Swift
counterpart.

* A survey of other languages suggests that, as terms of art, these names
are not always treated as a single word but as a phrase, by which I mean
that the preposition "of" can be subject to language-specific naming
conventions. For example, in Rust you have `size_of()`, `size_of_val()`,
etc.; in the .NET Framework, you have the `Marshal.SizeOf()` method; and
even in LLVM you apparently have (and this is based just on googling--my
level of familiarity with LLVM is low to nonexistent) struct `AlignOf<T>`.


> I don't know that
>
>   size(of: T.self)
>
> is particularly descriptive usage, and if we were going to change them
> so they didn't look like sizeof, strideof, alignof I'd want to make them
> far more descriptive.  E.g.
>
>   memoryFootprint(Int.self)
>
> or
>
>   bytesRequiredForStorage(Int.self)
>   standardByteAlignment(Int.self)
>   bytesBetweenArrayElements(Int.self)
>
> etc.
>

To my mind, `size(of:)` is not moving away from using a term of art but
rather following existing precedent in conforming use of the preposition to
language-specific conventions. Like you, I would be hesitant to suggest
moving away from these terms of art altogether. I do think, though, that
moving the preposition has the bonus of visually suggesting however subtly
that `size(of:)` might have a Swift-specific twist that makes it not a
drop-in equivalent for C `sizeof()`.


> --
> Dave
>
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