> On Jun 27, 2017, at 10:16 AM, Erica Sadun via swift-evolution > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Using an operator to provide feedback on the context of a failed unwrap has > become a commonly implemented approach in the Swift developer Community. What > are your thoughts about adopting this widely-used operator into the standard > library? > > guard !lastItem.isEmpty else { return } > let lastItem = array.last !! "Array must be non-empty" > > Details here: https://gist.github.com/erica/423e4b1c63b95c4c90338cdff4939a9b > <https://gist.github.com/erica/423e4b1c63b95c4c90338cdff4939a9b> > > Thank you for your thoughtful feedback, -- E
Finally found a few minutes to read this thread. I'm a big fan of the `Never`-based approach. (I was before, but I am more so now.) Here are the points I can see in its favor: 1. It is extremely clear about what's happening—`!!` is another random operator to learn, but `fatalError(_:)` or `preconditionFailure(_:)` are fairly self-explanatory, and `??` is something you might already be using. 2. It allows you to control the optimization behavior by using `fatalError`, `preconditionFailure`, or `assertionFailure` as desired. 3. If we later change `throw` from being a statement to being a `Never`-returning expression, you could use `throw` on the right-hand side of `??`. 4. It supports other `Never`-returning operations, like `abort()` or `exit(_:)` or your custom `usage()` function, on the right side of `??`. 5. It supports file-and-line error reporting without having to add any new features; `!!` could not do this because an operator can't have extra, defaulted parameters to carry the file and line. 6. It harmonizes with the eventual idea of making `Never` a universal bottom type, but we don't actually have to implement that today, because we can just overload `??` for now. Against these advantages, the only one I can see for `!!` is that it is terse. Terseness is good, especially for a feature which is competing with the single-character postfix `!` operator, but I can't help but be drawn to the flexibility and power of `??` with a `Never` expression on the right-hand side. -- Brent Royal-Gordon Architechies
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