[swift-evolution] [Pitch] Remove type-inference for stored property

Matthew Johnson matthew at anandabits.com
Mon Apr 10 12:52:09 CDT 2017


> On Apr 10, 2017, at 12:48 PM, Daniel Duan <daniel at duan.org> wrote:
> 
> No offense taken. 
> 
> There's no inherent problem with designing language with available tools in mind. After all, what we put in the language is a strict subset of what's viable in a compiler. 
> 
> IMHO Swift should care more about separation of language and tools due to its long-term ambition: is it a good language out side of the most typical experience? If I edit the source with my favorite editor, on Linux, and/or compile with an alternative compiler, can I get a similar experience ?
> 
> A language that conquers the world shouldn't depend on tools to be awesome.

I agree with this.  I just don’t think inference depends on tools.  It only depends on reasonable judgement by authors.  The same can be said for many features that we don’t want to do without.  Inference just happens to be an area where tools can help out when 1) a beginner or someone new to Swift is reading the code or 2) the author left off an annotation where maybe they should have included one.

> 
> Daniel Duan
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Apr 10, 2017, at 10:22 AM, Sean Heber <sean at fifthace.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On Apr 10, 2017, at 11:38 AM, Daniel Duan <daniel at duan.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Using tools isn't a bad thing. Designing language assuming users are using tools with certain capability is kind of a bad thing.
>> 
>> I see this sentiment on this list a lot. Where does it come from? Is there any supporting research? What drives it?
>> 
>> (I don’t mean to pick on Daniel - I’m curious about this overall from anyone that has sources. It has become such a prevailing refrain at times that I think it’d be best for everyone if we knew if it was even true!)
>> 
>> l8r
>> Sean
>> 
> 



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