> On 21 Dec 2016, at 14:07, Matthew Johnson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>
>>> The performance hit is likely a bit larger if you *don't* use a mutable
>>> property and instead create a whole new instance.
>>
>> How is
>>
>> let a = SomeStruct()
>> var b = a
>>
>> not creating a new instance?
>
> Of course this creates a new instance. But it’s not what I was talking
> about. What I was distinguishing is the performance characteristics of pure
> functional code that simply modifies one or more properties like this:
>
> let x = Person(firstName: “John”, lastName: “Black”)
>
> // don’t pay attention to syntax - any syntax with the same semantics
> // would have the same performance characteristics
> let y = Person(firstName: x.firstName, lastName: “White”)
>
> Relative to code that leverages the mutability model of Swift’s value types:
>
> var x = Person(firstName: “John”, lastName: “Black”)
> x.lastName = “White"
>
> The former is usually going to be slower because it requires copying,
> additional storage, and re-runs the entire initializer despite only modifying
> a single property. Sometimes the optimizer may be able to eliminate the
> difference, but that is not always going to be the case.
But those two pieces of code do not do the same thing. In the first case, you
still have the original value of x, in the second case you have “destroyed” it.
If, however, you had
var x = Person(firstName: “John”, lastName: “Black”)
doSomethingWith(x)
x.lastName = “White”
doSomethingWith(x)
i.e. you are recycling x, I would agree it is (probably) faster, but to me it
screams badness and I would only consider doing it if I have evidence that the
natural immutable model has performance issues.
>
> Your observation that a lot of boilerplate is required if you need to cache a
> derived property is very fair. That is a legitimate problem that would be
> reasonable to solve.
>
>>
>> Anyway, the cost depends on how expensive the calculation for the calculated
>> property is and how often you use it and how well the compiler can optimise
>> copies of immutable objects.
>>
>> On the other hand, making a property that is not supposed to change over the
>> lifetime of the object a let property is self documenting and not to be
>> avoided IMO.
>
> This is perfectly fair. But if you need the ability to construct a nearly
> identical instance with only one, or maybe a few, modified properties you
> probably have code that would benefit from using Swift’s model for mutability
> of value types.
I’d rather have a model that accurately reflected the real World problem and
only compromise it if I have evidence that I had a performance problem and this
would help alleviate it.
>
>>
>>>
>>> It might be interesting to think about language solutions to reduce this
>>> complexity. But in general, the mutability model of Swift's value types
>>> is an asset and should be embraced, not avoided. That's what a "Swifty"
>>> solution would do IMO.
>>
>> Yeah, I really hate it when people say “x is Swifty” or “y is not Swifty”.
>> What is Swifty or not usually depends on what the person saying it prefers.
>> On the other hand, most programmers i have come across agree that writing
>> code that is self documenting is good practice and therefore using let
>> instead of var for properties that never change over the life time of the
>> object counts in that respect in my opinion.
>
> “Swifty” was followed by IMO so it was clearly a statement of my personal
> opinion. I agree that self documenting code is a great practice.
So why didn’t you just say “but in general, the mutability model of Swift's
value types is an asset and should be embraced, not avoided IMO”?
>
>
> On the other hand there isn’t an increase in understanding of the semantics
> of a struct property by using `let` instead of `var` if that property will
> often be modified via an initializer that effectively creates a copy of a
> previous instance, but with a new value for said property. The differences
> between `let` and `var` in this case are pretty subtle and not usually
> consequential.
>
> There are certainly times when using let rather than var for members of a
> struct makes sense. An identifier is a great example where let is usually
> appropriate. But in *my* opinion there is a widespread misunderstanding of
> the semantic difference between let and var for structs.
>
> To demonstrate, in the following example both implementations of
> `updateOwner` have identical semantics:
>
> class Foo {
> var owner: Person
>
> // pure functional style
> func updateOwner(newFirstName: String) {
> owner = Person(firstName: newFirstName, lastName: owner.lastName)
> }
>
> // using Swift’s model for value type mutation, obviously only works if
> `firstName` is declared with `var`
> func updateOwner(newFirstName: String) {
> owner.firstName = newFirstName
> }
> }
>
> If your type is intended to be used in code with semantics like this there is
> no significant benefit to the pure functional style. Today there is a price
> in terms of syntax which could be solved provided sufficient motivation.
> There is also a price in terms of performance that may sometimes be optimized
> away, but not always.
>
> I’m not necessarily suggesting that one style or the other should always be
> preferred. What I am suggesting is that we should be clear about
> understanding what the tradeoffs are. And I am also suggesting that there
> are enough benefits to the mutability model for value types that identifying
> challenges with writing code that relies on this model (such as caching a
> computed property) is a more fruitful avenue for improving the language than
> offering syntactic sugar for more functional, perhaps lens-y style code.
> That’s not to say we can’t do both, but we do need to prioritize.
If I were glancing at Foo and I saw the method signature `func
updateOwner(newFirstName: String)` I would think “oh, this is a function for
changing the first name of the owner” not “oh this is a method for changing the
owner to a different person who happens to have the same details except the
first name”. I would have no problem with making firstName and lastName var in
this case because we are trying to model a situation in which people are
allowed to change their names.
These two lines, in isolation
> owner = Person(firstName: newFirstName, lastName: owner.lastName)
and
> owner.firstName = newFirstName
have different semantics as far as I am concerned. The first is assigning a new
owner. The second is the existing owner changing their name. I’d rather not see
the second form when a new owner is assigned and I’d rather not see the first
form if the owner has merely changed their name by deed poll.
When I am designing classes and structs, the only consideration I use for
whether something should be let or var is “can it legitimately change over the
lifetime of an instance”. If the answer is “no” it’s a let. I might modify my
decision in the light of profiling data, but if I did, the code would be
annotated with comments to explain why.
>
>>
>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> swift-evolution mailing list
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
