[swift-evolution] [Review] SE-0187: Introduce Sequence.filterMap(_:)

[BJ Homer]

On Nov 9, 2017, at 11:36 AM, Kevin Ballard via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Nov 8, 2017, at 09:29 PM, Paul Cantrell via swift-evolution wrote:
>> The problem in the Doodads example is that the name flatMap is used to identify two distinct intents: concatenating arrays and filtering nils. One can argue that those two operations are, in some lofty abstract sense, if you squint, two instances of some more general pattern — but I don’t think it’s fair to say that they represent the same intent. These separate intents deserve separate names.
> 
> They absolutely represent the same intent if you think of an optional as a collection of zero or one elements.
> 
> -Kevin Ballard

But as `Optional` does not conform to collection, I would suggest that the vast majority of of developers do _not_ think of them as a collection of zero or one elements. (I certainly don’t know any who naturally think of it that way.) We don’t treat Optional as a collection anywhere else in the API, and it seems odd to do so in just this one case.

-BJ
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