[swift-evolution] private & fileprivate

[Haravikk]

> On 7 Oct 2016, at 22:44, Tony Allevato via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> personally I thought `private` was fine the way it was when it meant `fileprivate` and I had no real need for `private` as it exists in Swift 3.

I have to agree with this; I wasn't especially comfortable with the change (or the eventual choice of keyword style) and in practice I just don't find it useful. I haven't used the new "private" even once since it was added, except by accident, the only form of private I use is fileprivate.

I've happily embraced the conform through extension style in Swift, and really when it comes down to it the new private access level just isn't compatible with that style of development. It's only really useful for hiding details of something you add in one specific section, which I almost never do (and when I do I just mark it fileprivate in case I can re-use it).

Maybe some people do find it useful, but I'd prefer fileprivate to be the default behaviour of private; the current (scoped?) private access level seems far more limited, thus more deserving of a less convenient keyword, or some kind of modifier on private. But personally I'd be fine with removing it, as I don't think it really adds anything that fileprivate doesn't already cover.