[swift-evolution] Take 2: Stdlib closure argument labels and parameter names

[Matthew Johnson]

Sent from my iPad

> On Jun 29, 2016, at 1:39 AM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> I've updated my pull request with a much more conservative set of
> changes that preserves/restores label-free-ness for all “term of art”
> functional methods such as filter and reduce.
> 
> https://github.com/apple/swift/pull/2981

I didn't participate in this discussion but want to say that I am pleased with where it ended up.  IMO this looks much better than the earlier version as well as some of the alternative that were discussed.  I think brevity is important for the common functional operators and was previously concerned with the length of some of the names.

> 
> My current thoughts are that many of the `by:` labels are awkward and
> not adding much.  Perhaps they all ought to be omitted.

Some cases are more awkward than others.  The value added by a label is also greater in some cases than others.  Unfortunately I think these tend to coincide.  

That said, I do think the value of a label outweighs the awkwardness in cases like min and max.

One change you might consider is to use different labels for comparison and equivalence relations.  'by' feels more natural in the context of comparisons and brevity feels more important in the methods that use a comparator.  On the other hand, I think dropping the use of the word equivalent for 'starts' and 'elementsEqual' feels like a step back in clarity.  Maybe we use 'equivalentBy' in these cases.

A suggestion for the future enhancements - rename elementsEqual to elementsEquivalent.  If we make that change the shorter 'by' label would feel much less awkward to me in this method.

-Matthew

> 
> -- 
> Dave
> 
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