[swift-evolution] Pitch: Cross-module inlining and specialization

[Taylor Swift]

I think we should try to separate visibility from access control. In other
words, the compiler should be able to see more than the user. I want to be
able to write private and internal code that cannot be called explicitly in
source, but can still be inlined by the compiler. Right now people are
doing this with underscored methods and variable names but I don’t think
that’s a good convention to use. We should have something at the language
level that enforces that something shouldn’t be referenced by name outside
of its scope, but is public for all compilation and ABI purposes. Maybe an
attribute like @visible or a new keyword or something.

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 4:45 PM, Xiaodi Wu via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> This is unduly restrictive; @_versioned (despite being the wrong spelling)
> is what we want here. To be callable from an inlinable function, internal
> things need only be visible in terms of public ABI, not necessarily
> inlinable, just as public things need only be public and not necessarily
> inlinable.
> On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 16:37 Nevin Brackett-Rozinsky via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 5:21 PM, Slava Pestov <spestov at apple.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for taking a look!
>>>
>>> > On Oct 2, 2017, at 2:19 PM, Nevin Brackett-Rozinsky <
>>> nevin.brackettrozinsky at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > 3. Even though @inlinable will have no effect on declarations which
>>> are not public, we should still allow it to be placed there. That way when
>>> the access level is later changed to be public, the attribute is already
>>> where it should be. This is similar to why we permit, eg., members of an
>>> internal type to be declared public, which was discussed and decided
>>> previously on Swift Evolution.
>>>
>>> This is an interesting point. Do you think the attribute should be
>>> completely ignored, or should the restrictions on references to non-public
>>> things, etc still be enforced?
>>>
>>
>>  Hmm, good question!
>>
>> I rather like the idea Greg Parker put forth, where non-public @inlinable
>> items can be used by public @inlinable ones, which implies that the
>> restrictions should indeed still apply—something @inlinable can only
>> reference public or @inlinable things.
>>
>> Nevin
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