This is an excellent, thoroughly thought out, and well written proposal! I’m 
eager to see these improvements land.


> On Aug 22, 2017, at 11:33 AM, Taylor Swift <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 2:35 AM, Andrew Trick <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> 
>> On Aug 21, 2017, at 10:59 PM, Taylor Swift <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> 
>> Sorry to bring this up again, but I was not able to defend the addition of 
>> `UnsafeMutableBufferPointer.deinitialize()`. It is incorrect for the typical 
>> use case and doesn't appear to solve any important use case. The *only* 
>> fully initializing method is `initialize(repeating:)`, but that will usually 
>> be used for trivial values, which should not be deinitialized. It's 
>> preferable for the user to explicitly deinitialize just the segments that 
>> they know were initialized, which can be done on the base pointer. The only 
>> benefit in having a `deinitialize` on the buffer is to communicate to users 
>> who see the `initialize` API for the first time that it is their 
>> responsibility to deinitialize if the type requires it. To that end, we 
>> could add a `deinitialize(at:count:)` method, communicating the symmetry 
>> with `initialize(at:from:). Naturally `index + count <= self.count`.
>> 
>> -Andy
>> 
>> I don’t agree with this. If `deinitialize()` is a problem because it 
>> deinitializes the entire buffer, so are `moveAssign` and `moveInitialize`. 
>> They all assume the released buffer operand is fully initialized. 
>> `deinitialize()` has just as much use as the other full-buffer releasing 
>> methods. Just take the image buffer example there 
> 
> `moveAssign` and `moveInitialize` assume that the sub-buffer being moved from 
> is fully initialized. That’s already obvious because the user is asking to 
> move source.count elements. I don’t see any use cases where it would pose a 
> problem. If the user is moving out of a partially initialized buffer, they 
> have already to sliced (and unfortunately rebased) the buffer. OTOH 
> `deinitialize` is incorrect for normal use cases. I don’t see any practical 
> analogy between those APIs.
>> let pixels:Int = scanlines.map{ $0.count }.reduce(0, +)
>> var image = UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Pixel>.allocate(capacity: pixels)
>> 
>> var filled:Int = 0
>> for scanline:UnsafeMutableBufferPointer<Pixel> in scanlines 
>> {
>>     image.moveInitialize(at: filled, from: scanline)
>>     filled += scanline.count
>> }
>> 
>> image.deinitialize()
> 
> We don’t want developers to do this. Instead we want to see an explicitly 
> named association between the number of items initialized and deinitialized:
> 
> image.deinitialize(at: 0, count: filled)
> 
> Flipping this around, it could be even more common to be writing into a 
> larger than necessary buffer (pixels > filled). If we’re providing 
> auto-slicing initializers, then deinitialization should follow the same 
> approach, rather than:
> 
> UnsafeMutableBufferPointer(rebasing: image[0, filled]).deinitialize()
>> image.deallocate()
>> 
>> and replace `Pixel` with a class type like `UIButton`.
>> And `deinitialize(at:count:)` is bad because you’re asking for a count on a 
>> buffer method. `moveAssign` and `moveInitialize` can take range parameters 
>> because they each have a second operand that supplies the count number. 
>> `deinitialize` doesn’t. That means calls could end up looking like 
>> 
>> buffer.deinitialize(at: 0, count: buffer.count)
>> 
>> which is exactly what we were trying to avoid in the first place.
> 
> But there is no value in avoiding the `count` argument here. That’s not a 
> valid motivation for introducing `deinitialize` on a buffer, and we’d be 
> better off not introducing it at all.
> 
> The only valid motivation I can come up with for introducing `deinitialize` 
> on buffer is to remind developers who are only looking at the buffer API (and 
> not the plain pointer API) that it’s their responsibility to manually 
> deinitialize (it doesn’t automatically happen on deallocation or destruction).
> 
> -Andy
> 
> 
> I replaced UnsafeMutableBufferPointer.deinitialize() with 
> UnsafeMutableBufferPointer.deinitialize(at:count:)

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