> On 7 Jul 2016, at 16:57, Karl <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 7 Jul 2016, at 07:50, Tim Vermeulen via swift-evolution 
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> This is a follow up from this swift-users thread: 
>> https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-users/Week-of-Mon-20160704/002489.html
>> 
>> As it stands, RangeReplaceableCollection requires an implementation for 
>> init(), which is used in the default implementations of (as far as I can 
>> tell) init(_:), init(repeating:count:) and removeAll(keepingCapacity:). The 
>> latter of these methods should be implementable with removeSubrange(_:) 
>> instead.
>> 
>> I would like to propose to *remove* all three initialisers from this 
>> protocol, because it makes it impossible for some collections to conform to 
>> it that need extra data for its initialisation, but are otherwise perfectly 
>> capable of having arbitrary subranges replaced by elements from another 
>> collection. Those three initialisers could either move to a new protocol or 
>> simply not be part of any protocol.
>> 
>> On a similar note, I’d like to have all initialisers of SetAlgebra removed 
>> as well, but that might need its own review.
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> 
> I believe the idea of RRC is that all you need to implement is the empty 
> initialiser and replaceSubrange(), and everything else (e.g. Append, insert) 
> is implemented in terms of those.

Right, but as it turns out, the empty initialiser is used in barely any of them.

> Even the initialiser which takes existing collection just initialises and 
> empty one and appends the existing collection (I.e. Calling replaceSubrange).
> 
> If I understand you correctly, it will not be possible to initialise a 
> generic RRC any more, will it? Because that RRC may need additional 
> information (e.g. A maximum buffer size if it stores its data in multiple 
> discrete buffers) which you can’t provide generically.

Correct. I haven’t come up with a use for initialising a generic RRC anyways, 
mostly because I think there are RRCs for which an empty init wouldn’t make any 
sense.

> 
> Maybe we could have a true copy-constructor instead? That is, replace 
> init<C:Collection>(_:) with init(_: Self), so that it could take any 
> additional arguments from that other instance?

This is certainly an improvement over init(), but what would it be used for 
with regards to this particular protocol? It might certainly be useful, but the 
empty initialiser can be useful as well; it’s just a matter of how relevant 
that method is to this protocol. Wouldn’t a copy constructor make more sense in 
the more general Collection protocol?

> 
> Karl

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