[swift-evolution] renaming CustomStringConvertible

[Xiaodi Wu]

Perhaps another candidate for sinking into `Syntax`?
On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 14:23 Dmitri Gribenko via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 12:16 PM, Eric Habberstad via swift-evolution
> <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> >
> > To the Swift community,
> >
> > May I put forth a couple of new names for the following protocol:
> >
> >
> > - CustomStringConvertible  —   rename as ‘Descriptive’ or as ‘Revealable’
> >
> >
> > Two goals for Swift is clarity and joy in use of the language, so I
> strongly
> > feel that ‘Custom-‘ not be part of any new name here since it contributes
> > little except verbosity
>
> Hi Eric,
>
> This protocol was called Printable before, but it caused a lot of
> confusion for developers, and was guiding the developers toward
> writing incorrect APIs.  We have seen a lot of developers writing code
> like this:
>
> func printAll(_ values: [Printable]) {
>   for v in values { print(v) }
> }
>
> This code is unnecessarily restrictive since in Swift everything can
> be converted into a String.
>
> func printAll(_ values: [Any]) {
>   for v in values { print(v) }
> }
>
> The same goes for retrieving debug descriptions and mirrors.  Any
> value can do that.  It is just that some values can opt into
> customizing this behavior.
>
> Thus, we renamed the protocols, adding the Custom~ prefix.  Our
> intention was to encourage only conformances to these protocols, and
> discourage writing APIs against them.
>
> 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>*/
> _______________________________________________
> swift-evolution mailing list
> swift-evolution at swift.org
> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20160701/2b2b051d/attachment.html>