[swift-evolution] [Discussion] A Problem With SE-0025?

[Xiaodi Wu]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 10:52 AM, Matthew Johnson via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

>
> On Jun 29, 2016, at 10:46 AM, Sean Heber <sean at fifthace.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Jun 29, 2016, at 10:22 AM, Matthew Johnson via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Jun 29, 2016, at 10:08 AM, David Hart <david at hartbit.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry if I wasn’t expressing myself well enough. In my original email, I
> said that:
>
> The new rules make `private` more prominent compared to `fileprivate` (the
> latter has a somewhat worse name).
>
>
> So I agree that my issue is more with the naming than the functionality.
> I’m mainly complaining that because of its name, `fileprivate` feels like
> more of a special corner case of `private`. But in the style of writing
> types through extensions, `fileprivate` will become much more prevalent
> than `private`, which feels slightly backwards.
>
>
> I don’t view it as more of a special corner case at all, but I can see why
> you feel that way since it has an unprecedented (AFAIK) and more verbose
> name.
>
> The proposal originally left `private` alone and used a new name for the
> new access level.  We weren’t able to find a name that didn’t have problems
> which led to the idea of renaming the existing `private`.
>
> My perspective is that it’s just the best name we could come up with for
> the concept in the context of the various access levels we want to
> support.  The name isn’t intended to discourage use in any way.
>
>
> It may not be intended, but that doesn’t mean it won’t, though. :P
>
> I can’t say exactly *why*, but I feel similar to David here in that
> “fileprivate” is such an… odd… name that I’m inclined to just not use it
> and let things default to “internal” instead. In fact, I have *already*
> caught myself doing this. I don’t know if that’s *bad* exactly (would more
> things being internal actually aid the compiler/optimizer?),
>
>
> I’m pretty sure more things being internal will not help the optimizer.
> In fact, if you are not compiling with WMO turned on it could prevent
> optimizations.
>
> but I think this is a valid concern. The issue here is rooted in
> psychology, not technology. :/
>
>
> That’s a fair perspective.  But a *significant* amount of time was spent
> bike shedding this.  I’m not sure whether you and David participated or
> not, but that was the time to have the naming discussion.
>

I think the case being made here is that `fileprivate` was settled on when
it was thought that it would be rarely used. With what's emerged in this
discussion, it turns out that `fileprivate` might be more useful than
previously thought, and the awkwardness of the name therefore is more
troublesome than when the naming discussion first took place.


> IMO the value of having more control over visibility far outweighs a
> slightly awkward name for file level visibility.  I don’t think it’s
> anywhere near awkward enough to avoid, but I suppose YMMV.
>
>
> l8r
> Sean
>
>
>
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