I am really glad to see this up again. It is definitely something that I am quite certain that all of the Foundation team and contriubters are quite enthusiastic about.
I know it would likely mean some extra work for the compiler team but factory initializers would be quite impactful not only for correctness for implementing swift-corelibs-foundation, performance for a number of cases as well as safety (I am certain we could remove some gnarly hacks in both the Foundation overlay and swift-corelibs-foundation if we could utilize factory pattern initializers) > On Mar 17, 2017, at 4:26 PM, Riley Testut via swift-evolution > <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote: > > Hi again everyone! > > Now that Swift 4 Stage 2 proposals are being considered, I thought it might > be time to revisit this proposal and see if it might align with the goals set > forth for Swift 4. > > As a quick tl;dr, this proposal describes a new "factory initializer" that > would allow you to return a value from an initializer. This would have > several benefits, as mentioned in the proposal itself as well as throughout > this mailing list. For convenience, here's a link to the proposal on GitHub: > https://github.com/rileytestut/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/NNNN-factory-initializers.md > > <https://github.com/rileytestut/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/NNNN-factory-initializers.md> > > Would love to hear any more comments on this proposal, and if we feel this is > appropriate for considering for Swift 4 I'll happily re-open the pull request! > > Riley Testut > > On Nov 19, 2016, at 7:45 AM, arkadi daniyelian <ark...@icloud.com > <mailto:ark...@icloud.com>> wrote: > >> i would appreciate this feature. >> >> For unexperienced developers, its often hard to recognize *when* factory is >> a good fit to do the job, and how exactly approach the implementation. I >> imagine having this feature built into the language may help to choose and >> implement factory when its the right thing to do. >> >>> On Nov 18, 2016, at 12:23 AM, Charles Srstka via swift-evolution >>> <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote: >>> >>> Is there any chance of reviving this? It seems to me that since this would >>> require Swift initializers to be implemented internally in such a way that >>> they can return a value (as Objective-C init methods do), it may affect ABI >>> stability and thus may be germane to the current stage of Swift 4 >>> development. >>> >>> Charles >>> >>>> On Dec 17, 2015, at 3:41 PM, Riley Testut via swift-evolution >>>> <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Recently, I proposed the idea of adding the ability to implement the >>>> "class cluster" pattern from Cocoa (Touch) in Swift. However, as we >>>> discussed it and came up with different approaches, it evolved into a >>>> functionality that I believe is far more beneficial to Swift, and >>>> subsequently should be the focus of its own proposal. So here is the >>>> improved (pre-)proposal: >>>> >>>> # Factory Initializers >>>> >>>> The "factory" pattern is common in many languages, including Objective-C. >>>> Essentially, instead of initializing a type directly, a method is called >>>> that returns an instance of the appropriate type determined by the input >>>> parameters. Functionally this works well, but ultimately it forces the >>>> client of the API to remember to call the factory method instead, rather >>>> than the type's initializer. This might seem like a minor gripe, but given >>>> that we want Swift to be as approachable as possible to new developers, I >>>> think we can do better in this regard. >>>> >>>> Rather than have a separate factory method, I propose we build the factory >>>> pattern right into Swift, by way of specialized “factory initializers”. >>>> The exact syntax was proposed by Philippe Hausler from the previous >>>> thread, and I think it is an excellent solution: >>>> >>>> class AbstractBase { >>>> public factory init(type: InformationToSwitchOn) { >>>> return ConcreteImplementation(type) >>>> } >>>> } >>>> >>>> class ConcreteImplementation : AbstractBase { >>>> >>>> } >>>> >>>> Why exactly would this be useful in practice? In my own development, I’ve >>>> come across a few places where this would especially be relevant: >>>> >>>> ## Class Cluster/Abstract Classes >>>> This was the reasoning behind the original proposal, and I still think it >>>> would be a very valid use case. The public superclass would declare all >>>> the public methods, and could delegate off the specific implementations to >>>> the private subclasses. Alternatively, this method could be used as an >>>> easy way to handle backwards-compatibility: rather than litter the code >>>> with branches depending on the OS version, simply return the >>>> OS-appropriate subclass from the factory initializer. Very useful. >>>> >>>> ## Protocol Initializers >>>> Proposed by Brent Royal-Gordon, we could use factory initializers with >>>> protocol extensions to return the appropriate instance conforming to a >>>> protocol for the given needs. Similar to the class cluster/abstract class >>>> method, but can work with structs too. This would be closer to the factory >>>> method pattern, since you don’t need to know exactly what type is >>>> returned, just the protocol it conforms to. >>>> >>>> ## Initializing Storyboard-backed View Controller >>>> This is more specific to Apple Frameworks, but having factory initializers >>>> could definitely help here. Currently, view controllers associated with a >>>> storyboard must be initialized from the client through a factory method on >>>> the storyboard instance (storyboard. >>>> instantiateViewControllerWithIdentifier()). This works when the entire >>>> flow of the app is storyboard based, but when a single storyboard is used >>>> to configure a one-off view controller, having to initialize through the >>>> storyboard is essentially use of private implementation details; it >>>> shouldn’t matter whether the VC was designed in code or storyboards, >>>> ultimately a single initializer should “do the right thing” (just as it >>>> does when using XIBs directly). A factory initializer for a View >>>> Controller subclass could handle the loading of the storyboard and >>>> returning the appropriate view controller. >>>> >>>> Here are some comments from the previous thread that I believe are still >>>> relevant: >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 9, 2015, at 1:06 PM, Philippe Hausler <phaus...@apple.com >>>>> <mailto:phaus...@apple.com>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> I can definitely attest that in implementing Foundation we could have >>>>> much more idiomatic swift and much more similar behavior to the way >>>>> Foundation on Darwin actually works if we had factory initializers. >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 7, 2015, at 5:24 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon <br...@architechies.com >>>>> <mailto:br...@architechies.com>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> A `protocol init` in a protocol extension creates an initializer which is >>>>> *not* applied to types conforming to the protocol. Instead, it is >>>>> actually an initializer on the protocol itself. `self` is the protocol >>>>> metatype, not an instance of anything. The provided implementation should >>>>> `return` an instance conforming to (and implicitly casted to) the >>>>> protocol. Just like any other initializer, a `protocol init` can be >>>>> failable or throwing. >>>>> >>>>> Unlike other initializers, Swift usually won’t be able to tell at compile >>>>> time which concrete type will be returned by a protocol init(), reducing >>>>> opportunities to statically bind methods and perform other optimization >>>>> tricks. Frankly, though, that’s just the cost of doing business. If you >>>>> want to select a type dynamically, you’re going to lose the ability to >>>>> aggressively optimize calls to the resulting instance. >>>> >>>> >>>> I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this! >>>> >>>> Best, >>>> Riley Testut >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> swift-evolution mailing list >>>> swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org> >>>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution >>>> <https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> swift-evolution mailing list >>> swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org> >>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution >>> <https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution> > _______________________________________________ > swift-evolution mailing list > swift-evolution@swift.org > https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
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