[swift-evolution] Revisiting SE-0041 Names

[Dmitri Gribenko]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 11:04 AM, Erica Sadun via swift-evolution
<swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> Proposal:
> https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0041-conversion-protocol-conventions.md
>
> Rejection: "The feedback on the proposal was generally positive about the
> idea of renaming these protocols, but the specific names in the proposal are
> not well received, and there is no apparent confluence in the community on
> better names.  The core team prefers discussion to continue -- if/when there
> is a strong proposal for a better naming approach, we can reconsider
> renaming these."
>
> John McCall: "To be clear, I don't care about the name.  If you want to
> rename IntegerLiteralConvertible to IntegerLiteral or whatever, I won't drag
> the conversation into the muck again. :)  It's the design of the
> requirements that I'm pretty opposed to revisiting."
>
> The Problem: This is really the last chance to rationalize this across the
> language and to evaluate whether other protocol groups should have a core
> scheme for naming.

Hi Erica,

I would like to re-state the feedback from Dave Abrahams, Max Moiseev
and me from the last time this was discussed.  Unfortunately I can't
find the exact email, so I can't provide a link.

- The "literal" protocols are not about conversion, they are about
adopting a certain syntax provided by the language.  "Convertible" in
the name is a red herring: a type can't be convertible from an integer
literal because there is no "IntegerLiteral" entity in the type
system.  The literal *becomes* typed as the corresponding literal type
(e.g., Int or String), and as far as the user at the call site is
concerned, there is no visible conversion (even if one is happening
behind the scenes).

Our suggestion was to focus on the "adopting the syntax" part.  We
suggested moving the "literal convertible" protocols into a
pseudo-namespace "Syntax".  It could be implemented like this:

protocol _IntegerLiteralSyntax {}
enum Syntax {
  typealias IntegerLiteral = _IntegerLiteralSyntax
}

And used like this:

struct Int : Syntax.IntegerLiteral {}

- For protocols that are representing conversions between types that
actually exist in the library, there is not enough precedent yet to
make a general conclusion and standardize a pattern.

Dmitri

-- 
main(i,j){for(i=2;;i++){for(j=2;j<i;j++){if(!(i%j)){j=0;break;}}if
(j){printf("%d\n",i);}}} /*Dmitri Gribenko <gribozavr at gmail.com>*/