[swift-evolution] [Pitch] Eliminate tuples - unify member access syntax

Sun Jan 8 12:23:44 CST 2017

On Sun, Jan 8, 2017 at 9:33 AM Freak Show via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> On Jan 7, 2017, at 22:51, David Sweeris <davesweeris at mac.com> wrote:

> A really convenient way to pass around multiple values without having to
bother with a formal struct.

That's actually a big part of my concern.

The people on this list are, I'm certain, among the top programmers working.

I'm more worried about what happens when average (which IME means barely
competent) developers get going with this.  I suspect nobody will ever
declare a struct again.

Swift has been around for two and a half years now. Do you have any
evidence that developers have stopped declaring structs in such widespread
numbers that everyone needs to be protected from them by removing a useful
feature?

  Type declarations are valuable - they are an opportunity to express
intent.  OTOH, a pair of ints is a pair of ints and if all pairs of ints
are type compatible then opportunities for catching errors drop if
developers start favoring anonymous tuples over former structs.

Anonymous types are also an opportunity to express intent. If I wrote a
division function that returns a quotient and remainder:

```
func divide(_ dividend: Int, by divisor: Int) -> (quotient: Int, remainder:
Int) { ... }

q, r = divide(18, by: 5)
q, _ = divide(20, by: 3)
_, r = divide(17, by: 6)
```

My intent is to return two values. That's all. My intent is *not* to create
a first-class type that can be constructed, passed around, or mutated.
Creating a "QuotientAndRemainder" type would complicate the design, not
improve it.

> On Jan 7, 2017, at 23:37, Derrick Ho <wh1pch81n at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think pattern matching is the most compelling reason to keep tuples.
>
> If they were gone, how would we replace the following?
>
> switch (a, b) {
> case (value1, value2):
> case (value3, value4):
> }

I really have to ask.  What do you use this for?  In general iPhone
application programming I have never wanted or needed to do that.  I do
some AudioUnits as well.  Still never needed it.

The time I use this most frequently is enum comparison with associated
values:

```
enum Foo: Equatable {
  case one(Int)
  case two(String)

  static func ==(lhs: Foo, rhs: Foo) -> Bool {
    switch (lhs, rhs):
    case (.one(let lhsValue), .one(let rhsValue)): return lhsValue ==
rhsValue
    case (.two(let lhsValue), .two(let rhsValue)): return lhsValue ==
rhsValue
    default: return false
  }
}
```

There's no reason to formalize a struct and use a named type for that—a
tuple does exactly what is needed there, which is an anonymous ordered
grouping of values.

Since taking on rescuing a few 2.3 projects on behalf of their highly
dissatisfied clients (I do this for all languages - not meant to be a Swift
ding), I have found an astonishing abundance of switch statements that
should have been handled by subclassing and polymorphism.

Choose the right design to solve the right problem. If developers are
misusing switches  when polymorphism is a better solution, then that should
be fixed in their code, not by removing a useful language feature that
serves other purposes.

The only time I ever find a use for a switch statement is in a parser
handling wild input.

Regardless, I would extend it to formal structs I think

switch StructName(a, b) {
case (value1, value2):
case (value3, value4):
}

> On Jan 8, 2017, at 05:46, Rod Brown <rodney.brown6 at icloud.com> wrote:
>
> Apart from your seeming distain for Swift

I tried very hard to keep from expressing anything like that in my
proposal.  Did I fail?  How?

Language designs tend to encourage some behaviors and discourage others.
The goal should be to encourage good practices and discourage bad ones. I
am basing quite a lot of my opinion on the code being written by other
developers that I am then asked to come in and work on.  Second generation
code.  Is it aging well? Why or why not?  Anonymous types everywhere isn't
really making things safer.

Bad developers will write bad code, regardless of what language features
are available. The goal should be to educate them on the proper way to do
things, not to restrict *everyone's* ability because of those using bad
practices.

  An anonymous pair of ints is an anonymous pair of ints.  You might as
well return an Array (and adding fixed dimensions as part of the immutable
array type would solve this just as well).  eg [T][4] or some such syntax.
So mostly I'm seeing arguments to keep the syntax because the syntax is the
syntax because that's what the type is so that is the syntax of the type.

> The following two are collection types you’ve arbitrarily attacked for no
reason. There are plenty of examples where each of these makes sense and is
relevant within the language:
> 3. Arrays - Lists of items.
> 4. Dictionarys - Key value pair collections.

I did not attack them.  I like them.  I would generally use them instead of
tuples.  That's how Cocoa largely works now. I used them as comparisons.

> Tuples themselves are actually a major part of how the language is built
under the covers, and removing them for no reason is part of taking the
guts out of Swift, for no reason.

I don't care what it looks like under the covers.  I am talking about what
it looks like to the developer.  Seems a bit "Tower of Babel-ish" in some
areas.  The goal was to point that out and see if the language could be
simplified.

> On Jan 7, 2017, at 22:51, David Sweeris <davesweeris at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>> On Jan 7, 2017, at 19:34, Freak Show <freakshow42 at mac.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think you're missing the forrest for the trees here.'
>>
>> Let me ask this:  if you remove tuples from the language - what have you
lost - really?  You can still say everything you could before.
>
> A really convenient way to pass around multiple values without having to
bother with a formal struct.
>
> - Dave Sweeris

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