[swift-evolution] [Pitch] Retiring `where` from for-in loops

[Xiaodi Wu]

This is a great point, Jo. I'd love to see a conversation about this,
actually, and starting a new thread would probably be the best way to get
the widest attention :)
On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 21:43 Jo Albright <me at jo2.co> wrote:

> This is probably going to get lost in this massive chain. But I am going
> to try to throw out a solution that I am not currently finding in this
> conversation.
>
> There is a huge battle between removing and keeping keywords based on
> understanding. In my opinion keywords have a tendency to create more
> confusion than any other part of the language. We have a great tool in
> place to help teach developers what API methods and variables are and how
> they are to be used. Using “Quick Help” you can easily learn more about
> that declaration that didn’t make sense.
>
> Currently we have a lot of keywords that could do different things… for
> example “in” is used in for loops to and also used in closure syntax. This
> can create confusion easily and at some point start a proposal such as this
> one. Instead of removing confusing pieces of a language, what about
> teaching others what the keywords do and how they should be used. If Quick
> Help was built to inform of what the keyword was doing in its current
> context, the developer could easily make sense of what is going on and
> choose to correctly use the syntax the way it is supposed to be used. You
> could even build in suggestions for other keywords that may have relevance.
>
> Another example would be “return”. When teaching I noticed a lot of new
> developers didn’t understand that no lines of code would run after it, but
> then would get confused that you had to pass values on the same line to
> return a value. Having Quick Help to not only explain how return works but
> also tell you what Type it is expecting (including Void) would be very
> helpful in learning.
>
> Whether or not “where” gets removed from for loops. I would really love
> the Apple team to think about extending Quick Help to work with other parts
> of syntax like keywords.
>
> Imagine a new user trying to figure out what “import”, “guard”, “defer”,
> “lazy”, etc mean. They have to google or look through docs… Quick Help
> could instantly give them more information without leaving their code.
>
> Thanks,
> Jo
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