<div dir="ltr">> <span style="font-size:13px">Personally I have always felt “</span><span class="" style="font-size:13px">class</span><span style="font-size:13px">” was an oddball special case here</span><br style="font-size:13px"><span style="font-size:13px">that's unneeded because </span><span class="" style="font-size:13px">we</span><span style="font-size:13px"> have a perfectly good protocol that means the</span><br style="font-size:13px"><span style="font-size:13px">same thing: AnyObject.</span><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px">+1 </span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px">Repurposing the `class` keyword to constrain a protocol to reference types has always felt awkward, out-of-place, and inconsistent with the rest of the language. I would love to see this changed to `AnyObject` as Dave suggests.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px">Given all of the other great refinements for language consistency that have been proposed and accepted for Swift 3, the awkwardness of using `class` here is even greater than before.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px">Jesse</span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
on Mon May 02 2016, David Sweeris <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> I was just thinking that:<br>
><br>
> protocol Foo : reference {}<br>
><br>
> might be more to the point than:<br>
><br>
> protocol Foo : class {}<br>
><br>
> I know that it’s currently a moot point because classes are the only*<br>
> reference-semantics type of type in Swift, but it’s conceivable that there might<br>
> some day be others. Anyway, I’m not saying it’s a big deal or anything, I’m just<br>
> trying to think of any source-breaking changes we might want to make before<br>
> Swift 3 drops, and this seems like an easy one.<br>
><br>
> - Dave Sweeris<br>
><br>
> * I’m not actually sure this is true. I have a very vague recollection about<br>
> some protocols getting reference semantics in certain circumstances, but the<br>
> memory is so hazy I’m not sure I trust it. Also I can’t remember if the<br>
> “indirect” keyword in enums affects the semantics.<br>
<br>
</div></div>Personally I have always felt “class” was an oddball special case here<br>
that's unneeded because we have a perfectly good protocol that means the<br>
same thing: AnyObject.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Dave<br>
</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Jesse Squires</div><div><br></div><div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:19px;font-family:helvetica,arial"><b>blog</b> | <a href="http://www.jessesquires.com" target="_blank">jessesquires.com</a></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:19px;font-family:helvetica,arial"><b>github</b> | <a href="http://www.github.com/jessesquires" target="_blank">github.com/jessesquires</a></div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:19px;font-family:helvetica,arial"><b>hexedbits</b> | <a href="http://www.hexedbits.com" target="_blank">hexedbits.com</a></div></div></div></div>
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