[swift-evolution] [Pitch] Refactor Metatypes

[Xiaodi Wu]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon <brent at architechies.com>
wrote:

> > On Sep 29, 2016, at 9:21 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Can you elaborate on your two reasons for the proposed Type<T>?
> >
> > In particular, what do you mean by inheritable and non-inheritable
> members of T? Where do these come into play? How is the current T.Type
> deficient in this respect?
>
> Consider a snippet of code like this:
>
>         class A { init(a: Int) { } }
>         class B: A { init(b: Int) { super.init(a: b) } }
>
> You can call `A.init(a:)` directly:
>
>         A(a: 0)
>         A.self.init(a: 0)
>
> However, if you try to assign `A`'s type instance to a variable and do it
> through there, you can't:
>
>         let aType: A.Type = A.self
>         aType.init(a: 0)                // Error: constructing an object
> of class type 'A' with a metatype value must use a 'required' initializer
>
> This is a reflection of the fact that an `A.Type` could be `A.self` or
> `B.self` (or any other subclass of `A`), and `B.self` may not have an
> `init(a:)`.
>
> `Type<A>` does not have this problem because it *is* guaranteed to be an
> `A`. It can express initializers and potentially anything else we might add
> that doesn't get inherited.
>
> Of course, that isn't hugely useful right now because `Type<T>` only has
> one instance, and you can just refer to that instance directly. But I don't
> like that this distinction is unutterable; `Type<T>` corrects that.
>
> And I think we may have features in the future where this is useful. For
> instance, if reflection ever gains the ability to access
> non-stored-property members, the distinction between `Subtype<T>` and
> `Type<T>` may become important. And if we ever get the ability to conform
> metatypes to protocols, I think non-inheritable conformances may be a good
> thing.
>
> > Regarding (2), it is already possible to do precise type matches using
> `==` instead of `is` (see corelibs-foundation for extensive uses). What
> does the proposal offer that goes beyond what we currently have?
>
> `as?` compatibility, I suppose? Honestly, that's just something I noticed
> when I was writing it up. It might not be important.
>

This is a very clear answer. So for my understanding, what you're saying
is: without other language features not yet proposed, `Type<T>` does not in
itself enable a particularly notable use case that's not currently possible
today. It is being included in this proposal because the original design of
Swift lumped two things together for simplicity, but you disagree with that
design decision and want the distinction to be utterable. Is that more or
less the gist of it?

--
> Brent Royal-Gordon
> Architechies
>
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