<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=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 4, 2017, at 6:45 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon <<a href="mailto:brent@architechies.com" class="">brent@architechies.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">Access control is a tar pit; let's not drown in it.</span></div></blockquote></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Amending this: The precise boundaries of lower-than-`fileprivate` levels of access control—what we're discussing here—are a tar pit. There are gains to be made by removing an access control level, but that's not an option. There are gains to be made between `fileprivate` and `internal`, and between `internal` and `public`, but those are not what we're considering here. There *may* be gains to be made by a ` `private` -> `scoped`/`fileprivate` -> `private` switch (I'm skeptical, but I can see the argument), but that's not in the offing, either.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Fiddling with the precise boundaries of `private` will have three effects:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>1. Some users will find it more useful.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>2. Other users will find it less useful.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>3. *Every* user, happy or not, will have to re-learn what `private` does for the second time in two years.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It does not seem possible to determine whether #1 or #2 will predominate. This is different from most proposals we consider: We are pretty confident that adopting key paths or making `String` into a `Collection` will be more helpful than harmful, but I don't think that's true of fiddling with `private`. And #3 is a certain, significant, and unambiguously negative effect.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div class=""><div style="font-size: 12px; " class="">-- </div><div style="font-size: 12px; " class="">Brent Royal-Gordon</div><div style="font-size: 12px; " class="">Architechies</div></div></span>
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