> On Mar 13, 2017, at 11:50 AM, John McCall <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> On Mar 12, 2017, at 5:00 PM, Matthew Johnson via swift-evolution 
>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>> On Mar 12, 2017, at 3:23 PM, Karl Wagner <[email protected] 
>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 12 Mar 2017, at 14:32, Matthew Johnson <[email protected] 
>>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> This is a really important feature IMO, but as others have pointed out it 
>>>> basically amounts to higher-kinded types.  I would love to be wrong about 
>>>> this but I am reasonably sure this is out of scope for Swift 4 (otherwise 
>>>> I would be working on a proposal already).
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> I’m not an expert on this stuff, but are they still higher-kinded types if 
>>> we don’t express a relationship between Self and the associated type? I 
>>> don’t think it’s quite the same conceptual leap as HKT.
>> 
>> I’m no expert either but it sure seems to me like it enables the things 
>> usually discussed in the context of higher-kinder types.  Maybe someone from 
>> the core team can comment on whether there is a meaningful difference
> 
> Yes, it's a way of getting some of the behavior of higher-kinded types.  Kind 
> of a well-known trick in a number of languages.  It's significantly simpler 
> to handle in the type system because the higher-kinded entities stay "second 
> class" — you don't necessarily have to deal with, say, higher-kinded type 
> variables in the constraint solver or in type inference.  Of course, that 
> limits some of the code you can write, or at least the simplicity of that 
> code.

Interesting, thanks John.  This would solve many of the use cases I have in 
mind.  It’s good to know there is a solution that doesn’t require the full 
complexity of higher-kinded types.  Maybe it will be feasible sooner than full 
HKT.

> 
>> and whether this is something that could fit into Swift 4.
> 
> No.

That’s what I suspected.  Thanks for confirming.

> 
> John.
> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> Consider that every associated type must be backed by a typealias (explicit 
>>> or inferred) in the conforming type. We can already have generic 
>>> typealiases. This would be a more targeted thing which required those 
>>> associatedtype-implementing-typealiases to contain generic parameters. It 
>>> would also extend the constraints from SE-0142 to allow constraints to 
>>> refer to those parameters and bind them to other associated types.
>>> 
>>> The workaround is basically to erase and dynamic-cast your way out:
>> 
>> Yes, there are workarounds, none of which are desirable.  
>> 
>> I ran into a case last year where there was a significant performance impact 
>> caused by the need to perform type erasure as a workaround.  The type 
>> erasing wrapper required an allocation and type information that could have 
>> been used by the optimizer was lost.  This was frustrating and convinced me 
>> that we definitely need HKT in Swift eventually.  There are very useful 
>> generic libraries that cannot be implemented efficiently without them.
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>>       //NOTE: dynamic type of ScanPromise.Result *must* be same as closure 
>>> result. No static enforcement though :(
>>> 
>>> extension Scanner where ScanPromise.Result == Any? {
>>>     func scan<T>(from f: Offset, until u: (Offset, Item) -> T?) -> T? {
>>>         return withoutActuallyEscaping(u) { _u -> T? in
>>>           return promiseScan(from: f, until: _u).await() as? T // downcast 
>>> from Any? to T?
>>>         }
>>>     }
>>> }
>>> 
>>> class MyPromise<R>: Promise {
>>>     typealias Result = R?
>>>     let offset: Offset
>>>     let block: (Offset, Item) -> R?
>>> }
>>> 
>>> class MyScanner: Scanner {
>>>     typealias ScanPromise = MyPromise<Any> // want this to be “typealias 
>>> ScanPromise<X> = MyPromise<X>"
>>> 
>>>     func promiseScan<T>(from: Offset, until: @escaping (Offset, Item) -> 
>>> T?) -> ScanPromise {
>>>         return MyPromise(offset: from, block: until) // upcast from T? to 
>>> Any?
>>>     }
>>> }
>>> 
>>> - Karl
>>> 
>>>> On Mar 11, 2017, at 11:49 PM, Karl Wagner via swift-evolution 
>>>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I have a model like this:
>>>>> 
>>>>> protocol Promise {
>>>>>     associatedtype Result
>>>>> }
>>>>> 
>>>>> protocol Scanner {
>>>>>     associatedtype ScanPromise: Promise
>>>>> 
>>>>>     func promiseScan<T>(from: Offset, until: (Offset, Item) -> T?) -> 
>>>>> ScanPromise // where Result == T?
>>>>> }
>>>>> 
>>>>> The thing that I’m trying to express is: whichever type implements the 
>>>>> associated type ‘ScanPromise’ must be generic, and that parameter must be 
>>>>> its result (i.e. something it got as a result of calling the “until” 
>>>>> closure).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Even with SE-0142, this kind of constraint would not be possible. What I 
>>>>> would like to write is something like this:
>>>>> 
>>>>> protocol Promise {
>>>>>     associatedtype Result
>>>>> }
>>>>> 
>>>>> protocol Scanner {
>>>>>     associatedtype ScanPromise<T>: Promise // now generic. [SE-0142]: 
>>>>> where Result == T
>>>>> 
>>>>>     func promiseScan<T>(from: Offset, until: (Offset, Item) -> T?) -> 
>>>>> ScanPromise<T>
>>>>> }
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>> 
>>>>> - Karl
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> 
>> 
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