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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri">Thanks Jens,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri">My main languages are C#, c, obj-c and now Swift. You can appreciate my point of view. I’ll just assume that adding “func” contributes towards the common good.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri">Thanks for responding.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Calibri;color:#B00000"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">-<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri">Jim<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:Calibri;color:black">From: </span>
</b><span style="font-family:Calibri;color:black">Jens Alfke <jens@mooseyard.com><br>
<b>Date: </b>Monday, April 4, 2016 at 2:32 PM<br>
<b>To: </b>Jim Malak <Jim.Malak@beryle-lee.com><br>
<b>Cc: </b>"swift-users@swift.org" <swift-users@swift.org><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [swift-users] Question out of curiosity: why "func"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">On Apr 4, 2016, at 7:25 AM, Jim Malak via swift-users <<a href="mailto:swift-users@swift.org">swift-users@swift.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Calibri;background:white">My background going into Swift was everything but JavaScript.
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Have you used Ruby or Python, both of which use a “def” keyword before a definition? And come to think of it, I think
<i>most</i> non-C-derived languages use some sort of keyword before a function definition. Just to name two language families, LISP uses “def” and Pascal uses “function” or “procedure”. <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">So C (and C++ and Java and C#…) may be the oddballs here in not using a keyword, along with some functional languages.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Calibri;background:white">One thing I often wondered about (usually every time I forgot to type it) is what purpose does requiring the keyword “func” serve when defining or decaling a function in
Swift. I am not a compiler expert but intuitively it would seem that the function signature could be readily recognized by the complier and people alike with the presences of the ()’s at the end.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I can’t speak for the details of Swift’s language grammar. I do know that adding not-strictly-necessary redundancies like this to a grammar is very useful for helping the parser understand the intended meaning of a syntax error, and thereby
producing a meaningful error message. (This is one of the reasons C++ error messages can be notoriously unhelpful: the syntax is so complex with so many possible ambiguities, that the error message may refer to a language construct that you weren’t even intending
to use.)<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">—Jens<o:p></o:p></p>
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