[swift-evolution] The lack of namespaces is leading people astray

[David Sweeris]

> On Jan 30, 2017, at 5:55 AM, Tuur Anton via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> The lack of namespaces is making people create all kinds of "design patterns".
> 
> struct API {
>     static let endpoint = "http://example.com/api <http://example.com/api>"
> }
> 
> Here is an "improvement" to the above "design pattern" to prevent instantiating API:
> 
> struct API {
>     private init() {}
>     static let endpoint = "http://example.com/api <http://example.com/api>"
> }
> 
> Finally, here is another "improvement" that uses enum instead of struct to avoid having to write the private initializer:
> 
> enum API {
>     static let endpoint = "http://example.com/api <http://example.com/api>"
> }
> 
> I doubt any of you find this beautiful. Yet these "design patterns" (just hacks IMO) are spreading like the plague because of the lack of namespaces.
> 
> What do you think?

Personally, I’m in favor of namespaces, but it’s more of a “seems like a good idea” thing than “I need this because <reason>”, at least from my PoV. I’m inclined to just defer to the core team’s judgement on this one.

On the plus side though, if we ever do get formal namespaces, it should be relatively simple to search for enums with no cases and give a fixit.

- Dave Sweeris

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