[swift-evolution] [swift-evolution-announce] Revision review: SE-104: Protocol-oriented integers

Dave Abrahams dabrahams at apple.com
Sat Jul 22 12:37:58 CDT 2017 

on Fri Jul 21 2017, Xiaodi Wu <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> Over the last months, I started two threads to discuss revisions to
> SE-0104; these received essentially no reply. 

Yes, I'm sorry I didn't have time to reply at the time.  These proposed
revisions are, effectively, part of my response to your remarks there.

> I’m quite sure others have touched on these topics too. This is a
> thread to formally _review_ certain changes, not a thread to “talk
> about” revisions generally.
>
> With respect to the specific issues raised: revisions are opportunities, as
> was well said, to apply new insights gained from experience. They are _not_
> meant to reopen the floor for anyone who already voiced their opinion on
> the original proposal simply to restate their opposition to particular
> changes. While every_one_ should certainly be welcomed to the community,
> that does not mean that every kind of participation should be. I don’t
> think we should be shy about saying, “I’m sorry, this is not a helpful
> comment at this time and place.”

I agree.  That said, it is all too easy to create an
impression—warranted or otherwise—that the community is insular.  It
wouldn't hurt to go out of our way to make sure that, when reminding
someone of what kind of feedback is appropriate to a review, the OP
understands that a forum for their concerns does exist, and that their
concern for the language is appreciated.

Another thing to recognize is that reviews will often lead to discussion
of topics that are connected to, but do not have a direct bearing on the
review.  Some of these issues will be important, and surely some will be
frivolous or ill-considered, but they all deserve the same respect.  I
don't think this is particularly easy to do well, but ideally we'd
figure out how to redirect these topics without appearing to reprimand.

I predict that switching to Discourse will give us a platform that makes
some of this social engineering work better, but until then we'll have
to take extra care.

> 
> On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 11:47 David Hart via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
>> On 21 Jul 2017, at 17:11, Nevin Brackett-Rozinsky via swift-evolution <
>> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>
>> The updates look fine and reasonable to me.
>>
>> That said, I think it is highly important that we have clarity regarding
>> what *is* the proper time, method, and process for raising issues with and
>> suggesting modifications to approved proposals. If there is one thing we
>> have learned recently it is that sometimes a proposed change sounds good
>> and gets approved (110, 25, etc.) which subsequently turns out to have
>> unintended detrimental consequences.
>>
>> We are not infallible, and there will certainly be times in the future
>> when we think a change is good in theory, but then after experiencing it in
>> practice we recognize it has problems. When that happens—and happen it
>> will—we need to be able to correct our course. And it is far better to fix
>> such things before they are released to the wider world.
>>
>> I don’t know if the issues Howard raises rise to that level. I haven’t
>> tested out the new integer protocols, so I am not in a position to weigh
>> the merits of the claim. Certainly in the abstract “signum” sounds like it
>> is asking for a property of the number, and not asking the number to do
>> something function-like, but I defer to those who use it in practice.
>>
>> The point is, rather than shutting down discussion by saying “it has
>> already been approved” and “this is not the place for discussing that”, it
>> would greatly behoove the Swift Evolution process to have an established
>> method for recommending changes to already-approved proposals. We have this
>> time interval between when a proposal is accepted and when it appears in a
>> public release of the language, and it seems only natural to use it as a
>> beta-testing period.
>>
>>
>> I think it also important that we encourage people to participate and not
>> drive them away. If we decide that a thread talking about revisions to a
>> proposal is not the right place to discussion other grievances about the
>> same proposal, perhaps a new thread is the right place.
>>
>> That way we can fix problems we encounter before they become permanent,
>> and similarly we can make minor changes which are obvious improvements we
>> somehow overlooked during the initial review.
>>
>> Nevin
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 7:50 AM, Xiaodi Wu via swift-evolution <
>> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I understand you feel this way, but this thread is a formal review of
>>> specific amendments to SE-0104. Those amendments are, again, the following:
>>>
>>> * Reorganizing shift operators
>>> * Removing the ArithmeticOverflow type in favor of using a simple Bool
>>> * Changing BinaryInteger's initializers that convert from floating point
>>> values
>>> * Renaming BinaryInteger's init(extendingOrTruncating:)
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 02:08 Haravikk via swift-evolution <
>>> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 21 Jul 2017, at 02:01, Xiaodi Wu via swift-evolution <
>>>> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Howard,
>>>>
>>>> The removal of BitwiseOperations is not under review here; that, like
>>>> signum(), has been considered twice and approved twice, and has not been
>>>> revised.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 19:36 Howard Lovatt via swift-evolution <
>>>> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The revised version of the proposal can be found here:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0104-improved-integers.md
>>>>>>
>>>>>> • What is your evaluation of the proposal?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Overall +1. Two reservations:
>>>>>
>>>>>   1. Functions like `signum()` that return a property would read better
>>>>> as a property!
>>>>>   2. I have found `BitwiseOperations` useful as an extension to both
>>>>> Bool and Set and for a custom set type. Therefore would prefer its
>>>>> retention and even more preferably that Bool and Set implement it.
>>>>>
>>>>> • Is the problem being addressed significant enough to warrant a change
>>>>>> to Swift?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, generic representation of integers is useful.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> • Does this proposal fit well with the feel and direction of Swift?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, particularly the re-arrangment of the protocol hierarchy is in
>>>>> keeping with the rest of the restructuring of the standard library.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> • If you have used other languages or libraries with a similar
>>>>>> feature, how do you feel that this proposal compares to those?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, many languages I use allow generic numeric functions to be written
>>>>> and I write my own numeric functions and will therefore use these protocols.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> • How much effort did you put into your review? A glance, a quick
>>>>>> reading, or an in-depth study?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Quick read, but have pulled my hair out trying to write generic stuff
>>>>> in Swift as it stands now.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I agree with Howard on both points; In particular I've never agreed with
>>>> the removal of BitwiseOperations, and believe it to be a mistake. What's
>>>> the point of making Integers more protocol-oriented if you then go about
>>>> getting rid of useful protocols?
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>>>>
>>>
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-- 
-Dave

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