[swift-evolution] Thoughts on replacing \() with $() or some other symbol

[Daniel Resnick]

I also disagree for the same reasons that Gwynne and Brent mentioned: I
find '\(...)' easy to read, fine to type, and consistent with other string
escaping syntax.

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> > I find that typing \(var) is very disruptive to my typing flow. The more
> I code in Swift, the more I like it, but every time I'm coding and then
> have to hiccup while typing \ then ( causes me to be annoyed. I know, it's
> minor, but it isn't a key combination that flows quickly.
> >
> > I would much rather have $() or perhaps ${} (like Groovy lang) or
> perhaps @() to go along with other uses of @ throughout the language.
>
> Even though I'm used to Perl's and Ruby's interpolation syntaxes, I
> immediately liked `\(…)`. It's parsimonious: Rather than taking a third
> character (besides \ and ") to mean something special in a string literal,
> it reuses one of the existing ones. There's no need to escape a character
> you wouldn't otherwise have to touch, or to think of another character as
> "magical" in a string. It fits nicely with the rest of the syntax, with `\`
> indicating a special construct and then `()` delimiting an expression, just
> as they do elsewhere in the language. It's an elegant solution to a problem
> traditionally solved inelegantly. It's very Swifty in that way.
>
> > A shifted key, like $ or @, followed by another shifted key like (,
> allows for a much faster flow and they are much closer to the home keys
> than \ which is nearly as far from home keys as possible (and awkward).
>
>
> I don't have any trouble typing it personally. If you find yourself
> accidentally typing `\9` or `|(`, we could probably offer an error for the
> former or warning for the latter with a fix-it. But if you're complaining
> that it takes a tiny fraction of a second longer to type than `$(` would,
> then honestly, I just can't bring myself to care. Swift optimizes for code
> reading. If we wanted to optimize for code typing instead, we'd have a very
> different style.
>
> --
> Brent Royal-Gordon
> Architechies
>
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