<div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; Hello Swift community,</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; The review of &quot;SE-0088: Modernize libdispatch for Swift 3 naming conventions&quot; begins now and runs through May 17. The proposal is available here:</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; <a href="https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0088-libdispatch-for-swift3.md">https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0088-libdispatch-for-swift3.md</a></span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; Reviews are an important part of the Swift evolution process. All reviews should be sent to the swift-evolution mailing list at</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; <a href="https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution">https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution</a></span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; or, if you would like to keep your feedback private, directly to the review manager.</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; What goes into a review?</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; The goal of the review process is to improve the proposal under review through constructive criticism and contribute to the direction of Swift. When writing your review, here are some questions you might want to answer in your review:</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; * What is your evaluation of the proposal?</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; * Is the problem being addressed significant enough to warrant a change to Swift?</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; * Does this proposal fit well with the feel and direction of Swift?</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; * If you have used other languages or libraries with a similar feature, how do you feel that this proposal compares to those?</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; * How much effort did you put into your review? A glance, a quick reading, or an in-depth study?</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; More information about the Swift evolution process is available at</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; <a href="https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/process.md">https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/process.md</a></span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; Thank you,</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; -Chris Lattner</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; Review Manager</span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt; </span><br style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px"><span style="font-family:helvetica;font-size:12px">&gt;</span> <div><br><div><div>Ok, I have mixed feeling about this proposal.</div><div><br></div><div>First, this is a huge breaking change, and it doesn’t really have to be one. The current SPM convention is to prefix C libraries with Lib. Following this convention, Dispatch (the C version) would be renamed to LibDispatch, and this new wrapper library would be called just Dispatch. With this setup, the old C api would still be there (under the module LibDispatch), which makes migration much easier. In the proposal, this issue is not addressed at all and it even says that all code using libdispatch would have to be rewritten. That is not ok.</div><div><br></div><div>Another issues is the proposal to &#39;automagically&#39; translate the C api into Swift. There are many libraries right now that wrap the current libdispatch functions and provide a similar api, and I don’t think there’s any reason why this shouldn’t be done the same way. I would also argue that doing this links the Swift language to libdispatch in a way that isn’t necessary. For example, there is a library called <a href="https://github.com/VeniceX/Venice">Venice</a> which provides CSP (go-style concurrency) for Swift by wrapping a fork of the C library libmill, and it doesn’t do any of the proposed magic importing of any sort. I don’t see a reason why libdispatch shouldn’t take the same approach.</div><div><br></div><div>Overall, I think the idea is good but some of the details are really lacking. As it stands, I would vote to reject this proposal and request revision, or reject it outright and suggest to use third-party wrappers around libdispatch (which is what the community is currently doing).</div><div><br></div><div>Dan Appel</div></div></div></div><div dir="ltr">-- <br></div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>Dan Appel<br></div></div></div>