<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 8 Jun 2016, at 01:54, Xiaodi Wu via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:</div><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">1) It is spelled out exactly what happens when a condition is met. I no longer have to remember whether the word that describes breaking from a loop uses a place analogy ("where") or a time analogy ("while" or "when”).</div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" class=""><br class=""></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="">(You cannot convince me that these words are intuitive when the meaning of "where" changes by context in today's Swift. Now, if you want to propose that these be named "breakif" and "continueif" instead, then I'd agree with you that they're intuitive names, but then they'd also be really ugly.)</div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><br class=""><div>I’m not sure I agree that this is confusing, a little extra to learn for new programmers perhaps but I think it’s fairly intuitive:</div><div><br class=""></div><div><font face="Monaco" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>while let value = foo.next() where someCondition(value) { … }</font></div><div><br class=""></div><div>This reads to me as “repeat the following block until this fails to be true”, the conditional binding in this case fails to be true if someCondition(value) isn’t true, so the loop ends. I think the key thing here is that the where clause is for the conditional binding and not the loop itself, so in this respect it behaves exactly like an if or guard statement. Meanwhile:</div><div><br class=""></div><div><font face="Monaco" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>for eachValue in theValues where someCondition(eachValue) { … }</font></div><div><br class=""></div><div>Reads as “for everything in theValues do the following if someCondition(eachValue) is also true”, in other words this loop always tries to visit every element of the sequence (a while loop has no implicit awareness of the sequence, it’s really just an if statement that runs over and over). In this case the where clause is part of the loop itself. There may be an argument that where should be renamed on for loops to better distinguish this, but once you consider that there’s no pattern or conditional binding here I think it makes a reasonable amount of sense.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>Yes this could be handled by an if/guard statement with continue, and while as proposed here could be done with the same plus a break, but these things come up so often that it just makes a lot of sense to get it all neatly onto one line. Chaining methods can do this, but it’s actually less readable IMO, or requires multiple lines to keep it clear which defeats the point.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>As with where on if/guard statements it’s about keeping the simpler, more common cases as clean and readable as possible. If the re-use of the keyword where on the for loop is confusing then that’s an argument for renaming that, rather than rejecting while or ditching the whole thing IMO. Personally I think it’s okay, you just have to think what the where clause is actually acting upon.</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="">3) I have the flexibility to do something between the first if statement and the second if statement, if I want. By placing the break statement at the end of my loop, I could effectively choose to have one more iteration than if I placed it at the beginning of my loop. There is nothing you can do to mimic that choice with your proposed while clause, unless you want to also propose a `for...in...repeat { } while` syntax.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>So? Like where clauses this is for the simpler cases, if you want to do something more complex you remain free to use more complex conditionals. A lot of the time you don’t need this however, so it makes sense to simplify the common case while leaving the complex one just as useful as it is today. Nothing about this proposal would stop you from using if/guard conditions inside the loop.</div><div><br class=""></div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="">4) This is the perhaps the important point. A beginning programmer--not any of us, presumably, but we were all beginners once--can accomplish everything that he or she desires without learning this new proposed syntax. Almost all texts, I believe, teach if statements before loops, and teach break and continue in the same breath as the loops themselves.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><br class=""></div><div>In terms of teaching there shouldn’t be a problem with just teaching the basic building blocks first, then showing off simplifications later. As with any coding the most important thing is to get the intended behaviour correct, simplifying or optimising the code can always come later.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>You could argue the same thing about the shorthands around closures; I’m not sure why but I had trouble with those initially until after I’d worked with them in the more verbose form (with fully named parameters and a return statement) till I started to get the logic behind it, now I can just right a quick closure with the dollar sign shorthand.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>A good linter could be written to detect the presence of a simple if/guard right inside the loop and could then suggest the use of where/while as appropriate.</div></body></html>