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

[Xiaodi Wu]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 5:10 PM, Daniel Resnick via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> 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.
>

Those are persuasive arguments. Consistency with other string escaping
syntax is a huge plus. Moreover, now that I think about it, \r or \n isn't
really a bother to type. The \( combination takes a little getting used to,
but it's not absurdly terrible. I suppose we could consider \{} or even \[]
instead of \() to alleviate the reach.



> 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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