[swift-evolution] Proposal SE-0009 Reconsideration

[David Hart]

> On 22 May 2016, at 11:08, Charlie Monroe via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> My main argument is that Swift is aspiring to be more than a language used for "apps on AppStore". As I've mentioned in the proposal, sensitive projects can't afford this class of bugs, since they are simple to make, hard to find and often you won't find them until runtime.
> 
> I know it's an extreme example, but can you imagine NASA using Swift with this kind of ambiguity without the ability to turn on such a warning? I've read several of their articles on software development and they are simply control freaks about everything. I know it's an extreme example, but the same goes IMHO with kernel development and any applications where lives are at stake.

The kind of critical applications used in sensitive system like rockets, nuclear plants, medical machines most often require safety so extreme that they use languages more fitted for those uses like ADA, or they use heavy linters over languages like Java.

One thing is sure: it’s already a difficult task to make a language like Swift span from systems to application development. I think it would be an impossible design task to make it also be useful by default for critical systems. I think it is much wiser to keep safety in mind, but leave the most extreme use cases to be implemented using linters.

If the design team is very serious about not integrating optional warnings, then I don’t think it is a huge bother to implement think in linters like SwiftLint is doing.

Regards,
David.
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