<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body><div style="font-family:Arial;">I have concerns. Responses inline.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div id="sig40804545"><div class="signature">Sincerely,<br></div>
<div class="signature"> Zachary Waldowski<br></div>
<div class="signature"> <a href="mailto:zach@waldowski.me">zach@waldowski.me</a><br></div>
</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div>On Fri, May 27, 2016, at 12:11 PM, Joe Groff via swift-evolution wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div>• What is your evaluation of the proposal?<br></div>
</div>
</blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">-1. Neither semicolon-based nor newline-based conditionals strike me as sufficiently better, and I do not feel it achieves its overall goal of being easier to read.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">The ";" did not pass my initial sniff test of readability. Though its rationale is convincing, I found it difficult to parse a ";"-based conditional as something being capable of short-circuiting and binding. I personally would prefer resolving the ambiguities around the ",", though I cannot speak to the feasibility of that relative to the compiler.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">The newline-based version gives me particular heartburn. I do not agree with the notion that conditional lists and multi-line statements are long-lost twins. The proposed syntax damages the context-awareness of an element in a conditional list; conditionals must be read and executed holistically, but, with the new syntax, an isolated line is not clearly a part.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">Consider, for example, a transposition of a few lines; regular statements enjoy a low rate of accidental behavioral change without comparable syntax change (because of optional bindings, guard, etc). My current project team has a hard time resolving merge conflicts (ironic - it causes a lot of them too). I don't have to work hard to imagine a scenario like "goto fail;" with one of these newline-based conditionals, which would be an unfortunate backslide for Swift.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div>• Is the problem being addressed significant enough to warrant a change to Swift?<br></div>
</div>
</blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">Yes. The current syntax(es) are often surprising as to what kinds of checks, bindings, and pattern matches can be achieved in a single conditional. If one member of a team is more fluent in the available combinations of Swift conditionals than another, it's not uncommon for the other member to review code and say, "Wow, are you sure you can do that?"<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div>• Does this proposal fit well with the feel and direction of Swift?<br></div>
</div>
</blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">It is strongly in line with Swift's direction to combine many organically-added syntax variations into a single overarching vision.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">I have misgivings about a change like this coming to a head so close to Swift 3's coming-out party.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div>• If you have used other languages or libraries with a similar feature, how do you feel that this proposal compares to those?<br></div>
</div>
</blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">I haven't seen the semicolon syntax before (except maybe in C-style for loops), making it a fairly novel and surprising addition to the language.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">Both forms of the new syntax give me concerns, but the Pythonic quality of the newline-based version does in particular.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div>• How much effort did you put into your review? A glance, a quick reading, or an in-depth study?<br></div>
</div>
</blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;">I read through the revised proposal in detail.<br></div>
<div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><u>_______________________________________________</u><br></div>
<div>swift-evolution mailing list<br></div>
<div><a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org">swift-evolution@swift.org</a><br></div>
<div><a href="https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution">https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution</a><br></div>
</blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"> </div>
</body>
</html>