[swift-evolution] [Pitch] Replace the ternary operator with an in-language function

[Rimantas Liubertas]

>
> Pitch: I'd like to simplify the syntax, compiler complexity and learning
> curve for newcomers when it comes to dealing with the ternary function. The
> best way to do that, in my opinion, is to remove it entirely and add a new
> function with better semantics that takes care of ternary operations
> entirely within the Swift language.
>

-1

A lot of things can and will be confusing for newcomers, that's not the
reason to remove them. Being a newbie is a transitional state.
OTOH, I've never got why ternary is considered especially confusing, for me
it never was a problem and I love the terseness of it.
Only total novices in programming may be surprised by it, but they will be
suprised by a lot of things anyway, so ternary is the least of their
problems. Those with experiene in other languages will be most likely
already familiar with the
operator.
Also, many come to Swift from Objective C, which not only has ternary, but
also supports a variant where you can use it kind of like ?? in Swift:
NSString *other = someString ?: @"default string".

Removing ?: gains nothing and loses a lot, I'd say.

Best regards,
Rimantas
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20161026/9229064c/attachment.html>