[swift-evolution] private & fileprivate

[Xiaodi Wu]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2016 at 8:49 PM, Braeden Profile via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> >
> > On Oct 7, 2016, at 5:46 PM, Trans via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> >
> > Private access that limits exposure to extensions and subclasses is
> > the bane of reusability. It sucks in Java and it sucks in Swift. As
> > far as I know Ruby is the only language that seems to get that.
>
> Agreed.  Reading this thread, almost everyone’s presented actual use cases
> would be fixed if we could do something functionally equivalent to
> private(type) (even if that’s not the best syntax).  If we could have the
> ability to write extensions for a type throughout a module and access its
> private properties (and private subtypes, methods, etc.), then the ugliness
> introduced by fileprivate would be all but eliminated.  That’s an access
> level I would love.
>
> I do want to mention, though, that while I would enjoy C++-style
> type-level private, I don’t want protected.  The rationale for avoiding
> that in Swift is fantastic.


If I recall correctly, this idea was also put forward during the original
SE-0025 discussions. However, the design we have now was chosen over this
alternative and others. I was one of those people who didn't really like
the new private, didn't like `fileprivate`, and generally felt that
alternative designs (or even the Swift 2 status quo) could be superior.
But, the discussion was had, all of these viewpoints and more were aired
and mulled over, and a consensus was reached. It'd have to be some
startling new insight to justify yet another change for Swift 4.

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