> The review of "SE-0041: Updating Protocol Naming Conventions for Conversions"
> begins now and runs through May 16. The proposal is available here:
>
> https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0041-conversion-protocol-conventions.md
>
> <https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0041-conversion-protocol-conventions.md>
> * What is your evaluation of the proposal?
-1.
I’m not 100% sure on the names (can we paint the bike shed plaid?) but more
importantly, I’m not sure the groupings are adequate
RawRepresentable seems to represent a sub-type declaring a super type coercion
system.
The various literal-based initializers are not necessarily coercion operators -
some operations (e.g. initializing a Set from a literal with repeating
elements) are lossy. These initializers also are not given a mechanism to
recover from failure (possibly because the literals mean that failure
represents a precondition failure in the written code?). That would imply that
these literal-based initializers are special - a non-literal needs
failure-reporting semantics.
CustomStringRepresentable is not meant for any sort of type conversion. It
returns a user presentation of the object as text (while the Debug variant is
meant to return a developer presentation)
So I don’t feel these represent In, Out, and InOut but instead three different
classifications of conversions.
> * Is the problem being addressed significant enough to warrant a change
> to Swift?
Now is a great time for naming consistency
> * Does this proposal fit well with the feel and direction of Swift?
Future direction there may be another change if coercion is defined as a
language feature (such as implicit numeric coercion)
> * If you have used other languages or libraries with a similar feature,
> how do you feel that this proposal compares to those?
I thought of Ruby and the difference between to_s and to_str. The idea of a
representation as a type vs coercion to a type is a hard one to learn.
> * How much effort did you put into your review? A glance, a quick
> reading, or an in-depth study?
A quick reading.
-DW
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