[swift-evolution] Smart KeyPaths

[Brent Royal-Gordon]

> On Mar 19, 2017, at 4:47 PM, Charles Srstka <cocoadev at charlessoft.com> wrote:
> 
>> This is true of many things.  It is why IDEs make type information readily available.
> 
> Is clarity not a thing to be desired?

Clarity is in the eye of the beholder. Here's one notion of clarity:

	sum :: (Num a, Foldable t) => t a -> a
	sum = foldl (+) 0

Here's another:

	int sum(int array[], size_t len) {
		int total = 0;
		for(size_t i = 0; i < len; i++) {
			total += array[i];
		}
		return total;
	}

And another:

	SUM PROC
	 ; this procedure will calculate the sum of an array
	 ; input : SI=offset address of the array
	 ;       : BX=size of the array
	 ; output : AX=sum of the array

	 PUSH CX                        ; push CX onto the STACK
	 PUSH DX                        ; push DX onto the STACK

	 XOR AX, AX                     ; clear AX
	 XOR DX, DX                     ; clear DX
	 MOV CX, BX                     ; set CX=BX

	 @SUM:                          ; loop label
	   MOV DL, [SI]                 ; set DL=[SI]
	   ADD AX, DX                   ; set AX=AX+DX
	   INC SI                       ; set SI=SI+1
	 LOOP @SUM                      ; jump to label @SUM while CX!=0

	 POP DX                         ; pop a value from STACK into DX
	 POP CX                         ; pop a value from STACK into CX

	 RET                            ; return control to the calling procedure
	SUM ENDP

And one more:

	extension Sequence where Element: Arithmetic {
		func sum() {
			return reduce(0, +)
		}
	}

Clarity is not achieved by explicitly stating every detail of your code. It's achieved by explicitly stating what needs to be said, and *not* explicitly stating what *doesn't* need to be said.

The people who oppose using a special syntax for this feature think that, by and large, clarity is best served by *not* explicitly stating when you're using a key path. They believe that you are unlikely to run into ambiguity and, when you do, it will be easy to work around it. This is an opinion, so it's open to disagreement, but that's where they stand on it.

-- 
Brent Royal-Gordon
Architechies

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20170319/24a60fd0/attachment.html>