> On 21 Jul 2016, at 17:52, Matthew Johnson via swift-evolution > <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Jul 21, 2016, at 11:42 AM, Daniel Steinberg via swift-evolution >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> This may be a silly question - given that one of Swift’s design principles >> is to be a language for new programmers and for APIs to read like English >> phrases, should we replace the typealias of Void for the return type () with >> Nothing. > > Nothing was one of the names considered for the bottom type that replaces > @noreturn > (https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0102-noreturn-bottom-type.md). > I think it would be confusing to rename Void to Nothing.
I think on that issue the favourite for replacing @noreturn is Never or NoReturn, rather than Nothing (since @noreturn doesn't return nothing, it doesn't return in the first place), so Nothing is actually okay in that regard. I wouldn't mind the change of name, as void to me suggests something like a yawning abyss, which implies a substantive gap, rather than an actual absence of something, whereas Nothing is a bit clearer. That said I've never had any real trouble with Void, but can see Nothing being a tad easier to teach. It's also not necessarily a very disruptive change, as many people don't write -> Void and just omit it, though personally I prefer to always write it out explicitly. _______________________________________________ swift-evolution mailing list [email protected] https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
