> On 28 May 2016, at 20:16, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I couldn't disagree more. Generic programming is a far more advanced concept > than arrays and dictionaries, and learners should be able to use them without > contending with angle brackets they don't understand. > > Fundamentally, even for an experienced user of the language, working with > Collections and Sequences requires more consideration than working with > arrays. It's not just a matter of how these things are spelled. It seems like > you want to punish users who don't have the time or inclination to genericize > their algorithms by making them write more, in the hopes that if you make > working with arrays difficult enough, people will switch to generic > containers. That's bonkers.
It’s not about making working with arrays difficult, but if we can make working with basic generic collections/sequences just as easy, then it makes sense to encourage their use as much as possible. Like in the example below, Sequence.of<Foo> is pretty straightforward, and far more flexible and useful than just using [Foo], as you can trivially change the type of collection you use later. More complex generics definitely need to be explored separately, but Sequence.of<Foo> should be just as simple to use as [Foo], it’s just a little longer because of the ability to distinguish between sequence and collection. > On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 14:38 Haravikk via swift-evolution > <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote: > >> On 27 May 2016, at 15:31, plx via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org >> <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote: >> >> protocol Sequence { > >> typealias of<E> == S: Self where S.Iterator.Element == E >> } >> > >> // sequence-accepting variant >> func doSomething<S:Sequence.of<Foo>>(values: S) { … } > > > This is a nice alternative; would it actually need to be declared in the > angle brackets? Could it be done as: > > func doSomething(values:Sequence.of<Foo>) { … } > > As long as it would work the same as a generic declaration this could be a > good way to do it, either that or a SequenceOf type alias as mentioned. > > > Still, I kind of feel like we need to do something with the array type > shorthand, but I wonder if perhaps we could just get rid of it altogether, to > prevent its use entirely? i.e- all instances of [Foo] can be replaced with > Array<Foo>, but we would encourage the use of > Sequence.of/SequenceOf/Collection.of/CollectionOf first wherever possible. > > As more types become available that are ArrayLiteralConvertible it seems like > we should discourage restriction of a parameter to Array except when a > developer explicitly chooses it. This problem will come up with the > Dictionary type shorthand as well if Swift gets some kind of Map protocol to > abstract it, and we don’t even have a Set-specific syntax so it seems like it > may be fairer to remove these shorthands.
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