[swift-evolution] [Idea] Use optionals for non-optional parameters
Justin Jia
justin.jia.developer at gmail.com
Tue Aug 16 10:03:21 CDT 2016
I will reply both of your email in this simple email.
> On Aug 16, 2016, at 10:26 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Top-replying because Google is forcing me to:
>
> If you want to print an error for all early exits, declare a variable to keep track of exit status such as `var isEarlyExit = false`, then use a defer block that prints `error` only after checking `isEarlyExit` (or, you know, design your code so that `error` itself would be nil if you're exiting without an error).
>
IMHO `var is EarlyExist = false` is really ugly. Sometimes we can’t design our code so that `error` itself would be nil if existing without an error simply because we de depending on Cocoa Touch and many third party frameworks.
> It is not "really bad" if your code "fails" unless the lines of code are executed in the explicitly written order. There are no tricks hidden in that behavior: lines of code are *supposed* to be executed from top to bottom in the absence of a control flow statement, because Swift is a procedural programming language. Proceeding from one line to the next is the absolute most primitive flow of control.
>
Not always, but sometimes. Maybe I should say it’s “better” if changing the order of the code won’t produce any unintentional behaviors? We are talking about how to improve Swift, right?
> `guard` and `defer` were introduced in a later version of Swift to solve a practical problem encountered in daily use, the nested pyramid of doom from too many `if let` blocks. The point is that `guard` and `defer` together constitute an ingenious and *complete* solution to that problem; you have not shown me any scenario that cannot be trivially refactored to avoid nested blocks using these two language constructs. So more sugar is not necessary to solve this problem.
>
Well, it’s Turing Complete. I can’t argue against it. But I can give you an example that needs multiple defer. I think this greatly hinders readability. Also, I think making our code less order independent is already important enough.
> "This is not explicit enough" *is* an argument against almost any sugar you can propose. I think you are seeing why the core team is actively discouraging sugar proposals on this list. Unless something comes along that totally blows the alternative out of the water, I'm inclined to agree that more sugar is almost a non-goal for Swift.
>
> (What would be something that could change my mind? Here would be my criteria:
>
> * The non-sugared version is extremely painful to write (>>5 LOC, maybe >>20), difficult to write correctly, and even if correctly written, does not express the intended solution clearly to the reader.
>
I don’t know how many time you spent on writing swift code in the past. I also don’t know whether your code depends on Cocoa or not. At least, personally, this is the no.1 request in my wish list. I think `if let` is extremely painful to write (not because >>20, but because it occurs too often and keeps bugging me). Maybe you feel differently. Then it’s really hard for me to convince you and it’s also really hard for you to convince me. Time will tell how many developers want this feature.
> * There is a single, overwhelmingly obvious, universally or nearly universally appropriate solution, and the proposed sugar would always be a shorthand for that one solution.
>
If we choose to reinvent if statements, short-circuiting will not be a nearly universally appreciate solution. Not even close.
> Something like a copy-on-write attribute would fit the bill, because good luck implementing that by hand over and over again, and if you're a reader of code, good luck verifying that all that code does what you think.)
Maybe. But’s that’s another story.
> I have already explained why your proposal is not at all like optional chaining. Your proposal hides complicated control flow changes, but optional chaining does not.
>
> It does not do you any good to argue that "most people won't nest functions inside functions". First of all, that's an unbelievable claim. Second of all, computed properties can have side effects, since they are essentially functions under the hood. Have you never referred to `foo.bar` inside a function call? You literally cannot know if a property is computed, potentially with side effects, unless you inspect the source code. Thus, a programmer cannot know if they "choose to nest functions inside functions". It does not matter if they are a genius.
Same apply to if statement. IMO, this paragraph can be used to argue against all statements that will short-circuit in some way. I’m still not convinced why `if` can be used but the proposed solution can’t.
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 23:56 Justin Jia <justin.jia.developer at gmail.com <mailto:justin.jia.developer at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> On Aug 16, 2016, at 1:51 AM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com <mailto:xiaodi.wu at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:31 PM, Justin Jia <justin.jia.developer at gmail.com <mailto:justin.jia.developer at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Since you mentioned do and defer:
>>
>> ```
>> func foo(wantsToBreak: Bool) {
>> out: do {
>> defer { print("Hello, world!") }
>> guard wantsToBreak else { break out }
>> }
>> print("End of function.")
>> }
>>
>> foo(wantsToBreak: true) // Output: Hello, world!\nEnd of function.
>> foo(wantsToBreak: false) // Output: Hello, world!\nEnd of function.
>> ```
>>
>> Do you think this is confusing?
>>
>> No, I don't. But I also don't see why you would put `defer` inside `do` like that. `defer` and `guard` can be used profitably without nesting inside blocks.
>>
>
> Because I don’t want `defer` to execute outside do block. Let me give you a simplified example: I wanted to print error for all early exits except normal return (reaches last line). I would like to use defer otherwise I need to write `else { print(error); return }` for all guards. The intuitive way of achieving this for me was to nest defer inside do blocks. But it turned out that defer will be executed even if you choose to break a block. I’m not arguing this is a bad design decision. My point is: sometimes non-intuitive design decisions are non-avoidable.
>
>
>> At least it confused me in the fast. However, defer is still very useful.
>>
>> Even if I choose to use guard, defer and do, it will still look like the one with `if let`. Lots of blocks. The code should be straightforward without any brackets.
>>
>> Huh? I don't buy this argument at all. You don't like the look of `{ }`, so you are proposing new sugar using `?`--is that what you're claiming? This sounds to me like the same motivation as that behind early suggestions to move to a Python-like syntax.
>>
>> See this example (since it’s a lot of code I rendered a PDF).
>>
>> I don't see the motivation in this example. Why wouldn't you just move the code to update `cell.heading` right after you guard that `imageName` is not nil?
>>
>
> I already explained why. It was just a naive example. In real life methods can be a lot more complicated than my example. It’s really bad if your code will fail unless it follows the same exact order. We need to modify our code everyday, and most of the time we are working on code that is not even written by ourselves. If you scan through methods with name like updateCell, intuitively, you will think the order of the code will not matter. And it shouldn’t! It is really easy to make mistakes with guard statement because the order matters here. IMO, guard is only useful if we place it at the beginning of the function—for all or nothing.
>
> Why we chose to use brackets and indentation? Because they can warn us that the behavior of the code will change. Either the outcome will vary (if) or the code will be executed for more than one time (for). Checking an object if is nil doesn’t always belong here. Using `if let` is not being explicit. It’s boilerplate. A not-so-good fix for the side effect of optionals. Most of the time, we want the flow to be “flat”. That’s why swift supports `guard` and `object?.method`. If you think `foo(x?)` is not important, do you think `guard` and `object?.method` are also not important?
>
> I understand that Swift is designed to be explicit. I also agree with it. But I saw an unhappy trend in the mailing list: "this is not explicit enough" can be used to argue against anything. Shall we remove @autoclosure? Shall we remove trailing closures? Shall we remove `object?.method`?
>
>>> On Aug 16, 2016, at 1:16 AM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com <mailto:xiaodi.wu at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:07 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com <mailto:xiaodi.wu at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 11:43 AM, Justin Jia <justin.jia.developer at gmail.com <mailto:justin.jia.developer at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> I believe the core team has considered 99% of the ideas in the mailing list in the past, but it doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it, right?
>>>
>>> No, it certainly doesn't! I'm saying that you haven't come up with a solution to a known problem with the idea.
>>>
>>>
>>> Assuming we have the following declaration:
>>>
>>> ```
>>> func foo(a: Int, b: Int?, c: Int, d: Int?) -> Int
>>> ```
>>>
>>> For this:
>>>
>>> ```
>>> let z = foo(a: f1(), b: f2()?, c: f3(), d: f4()?) // z becomes optional
>>> ```
>>>
>>> We have a few different “possible solutions”:
>>>
>>> 1. Short-circuiting from left to right. This is equivalent to:
>>>
>>> ```
>>> var z: Int? = nil
>>> let a = f1()
>>> guard let b = f2() else { return }
>>> let c = f3()
>>> guard let d = f4() else { return }
>>> z = foo(a: a, b: b, c: c, d: d)
>>> ```
>>>
>>> 2. Short-circuiting from left to right for optionals. Then evaluate non-optional parameters. This is equivalent to:
>>>
>>> ```
>>> var z: Int? = nil
>>> guard let b = f2() else { return }
>>> guard let d = f4() else { return }
>>> let a = f1()
>>> let c = f3()
>>> z = foo(a: a, b: b, c: c, d: d)
>>> ```
>>>
>>> 3. Do not short-circuiting.
>>>
>>> ```
>>> var z: Int? = nil
>>> let a = f1()
>>> let optionalB = f2()
>>> let c = f3()
>>> let optionalD = f4()
>>> guard let b = optionalB else { return }
>>> guard let d = optionalD else { return }
>>> z = foo(a: a, b: b, c: c, d: d)
>>> ```
>>>
>>> Like I said before, I agree that there is no intuitive solution to this problem. However, I'm still not convinced that this feature is *not important*.
>>>
>>> Thank you for pointing out the problem to me. I didn't notice it at the time I wrote my first email. I really appreciate that. However, instead of saying I don't know which is the best solution so let's assume the core team made the right decision, we should discuss whether 1, 2, 3 is the best solution. Or you can convince me we don't *need* this feature.
>>>
>>> I'm going to convince you that 1, 2, and 3 are all bad solutions. Thus, this feature won't fly.
>>> The fundamental issue is that having this sugar means that I can no longer reason about the order in which code is executed. An innocuous statement such as `print(a(), b(), c(), d())`, once you mix in your proposed `?` syntax with some but not all of these function calls, might have d() executed before a(), after a(), or not at all. This is greatly damaging to the goal of writing clear, understandable code.
>>>
>>>
>>> Back to the original topic.
>>>
>>> I spent some time thinking and changed my mind again. I think solution 1 is most reasonable. It is consistent with if statements. Instead of treating it as sugar for `if let`, we can treat it as sugar for `guard`, which is much easy to understand and remember.
>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>> Below is the reason why I think this feature is important (quoted from another email).
>>>
>>> The problem with `if let` is you need to call the function inside { }.
>>>
>>> ```
>>> /* code 1 */
>>> if let x = x, let y = y {
>>> /* code 2, depends on x and y to be non-optional */
>>> let z = foo(x, y)
>>> if let z = z {
>>> bar(z)
>>> }
>>> /* code 3, depends on x and y to be non-optional */
>>> }
>>> /* code 4 */
>>> ```
>>>
>>> I can't use `guard` for this situation because guard will force me to leave the entire function.
>>>
>>> ```
>>> /* code 1 */
>>> guard let x = x, y = y else { return }
>>> /* code 2, depends on x and y to be non-optional */
>>> guard let z = foo(x, y) else { return }
>>> bar(z)
>>> /* code 3, depends on x and y to be non-optional */ <- This won't execute if z is nil
>>> /* code 4 */ <- This won't execute if x, y or z is nil
>>> ```
>>>
>>> Then surround it with a do block.
>>>
>>> ```
>>> out: do {
>>> guard foo else { break out }
>>> guard bar else { break out }
>>> /* other code */
>>> }
>>> ```
>>>
>>> Or, more idiomatically, since your use case is that you want /* code 4 */ to be executed no matter what, while everything else depends on x and y not being nil:
>>>
>>> ```
>>> defer { /* code 4 */ }
>>> guard let x = x, let y = y else { return }
>>> /* code 2 */
>>> /* code 3 */
>>> ```
>>>
>>>
>>> What I really want is some like this:
>>>
>>> ```
>>> / * code 1 */
>>> let z = foo(x?, y?)
>>> /* code 2, depends on x and y to be non-optional, use x? and y? */
>>> bar(z?)
>>> /* code 3, depends on x and y to be non-optional, use x? and y? */
>>> /* code 4 */
>>> ```
>>> This is much easier to read. Sometimes people choose to use `guard` to avoid `{ }`, which usually lead to code could easily get wrong (like the second example).
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Justin
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Aug 15, 2016, at 11:41 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com <mailto:xiaodi.wu at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> What do you mean, limited to variables? What about a computed property? You will have the same problem.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure where you want to go with this, given that the core team has considered the same idea in the past and found these issues to have no good solution.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 04:56 Justin Jia <justin.jia.developer at gmail.com <mailto:justin.jia.developer at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> IMO I don't this bar should be evaluated unless we decide if let can accept non-optional values.
>>>>
>>>> Actually, what if we allow if let to accept non-optional values?
>>>>
>>>> I agree this is confusing at the beginning. But people who are not familiar with the detail design can avoid this situation easily. People who are familiar with the design can adopt it quickly. Sometimes, this is unavoidable.
>>>>
>>>> Btw, do you think this is still something nice to have if we limit this syntax to only variables?
>>>>
>>>> On Aug 15, 2016, at 4:59 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com <mailto:xiaodi.wu at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 3:55 AM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com <mailto:xiaodi.wu at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 3:25 AM, Justin Jia via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Aug 15, 2016, at 4:09 PM, Charlie Monroe <charlie at charliemonroe.net <mailto:charlie at charliemonroe.net>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The example above was to better demonstrate the problem with *when* to evaluate the latter argument. Why should both arguments be evaluated *before* the if statement? If both calls return Optionals,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> if let x = bar(42), y = baz(42) { ... }
>>>>>>
>>>>>> is how would I write it without the suggested syntax - baz(42) will *not* be evaluated if bar(42) returns nil. Which bears a question why would
>>>>>>
>>>>>> foo(bar(42)?, baz(42)?)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> evaluate both arguments even if the first one is nil, making it incosistent with the rest of the language?
>>>>>
>>>>> I see your point. I understand that maybe 1/2 of the people think we should evaluate both arguments and 1/2 of the people think we should only evaluate the first argument.
>>>>>
>>>>> I changed my idea a little bit. Now I think you are right. We should only evaluate the first argument in your example. It’s not only because of inconsistent, but also because the language should at least provide a way to “short-circuit” to rest of the arguments.
>>>>>
>>>>> If they want to opt-out this behavior, they can always write:
>>>>>
>>>>> ```
>>>>> let x = bar(42)
>>>>> let y = baz(42)
>>>>> foo(x?, y?)
>>>>> ```
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, that was just the easy part. Now, suppose bar is the function that isn't optional.
>>>>>
>>>>> ```
>>>>> foo(bar(42), baz(42)?)
>>>>> ```
>>>>>
>>>>> Is bar evaluated if baz returns nil? If you want this syntax to be sugar for if let, then the answer is yes.
>>>>>
>>>>> s/yes/no/
>>>>>
>>>>> If short-circuiting works left-to-right, then the answer is no.
>>>>>
>>>>> s/no/yes/
>>>>>
>>>>> (See? Confusing.)
>>>>>
>>>>> This is very confusing, and there is no good intuitive answer.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> swift-evolution mailing list
>>>>> swift-evolution at swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>
>>>>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution <https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution>
>>
>>
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