What happened to this? Should we revive this talk? I’d love to finally be able 
to nest protocols in Swift 5 and clean up my code.

Am 18. Januar 2017 um 09:48:20, Slava Pestov via swift-evolution 
(swift-evolution@swift.org) schrieb:

I left some review comments here:

https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/commit/ff654e4

Slava

On Jan 18, 2017, at 12:17 AM, Karl Wagner <razie...@gmail.com> wrote:


On 18 Jan 2017, at 01:07, Douglas Gregor <dgre...@apple.com> wrote:


On Nov 5, 2016, at 2:44 AM, Karl via swift-evolution 
<swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:


On 2 Nov 2016, at 20:54, Slava Pestov <spes...@apple.com> wrote:


On Nov 2, 2016, at 8:32 AM, Paul Cantrell <cantr...@pobox.com> wrote:


On Oct 24, 2016, at 4:43 PM, Slava Pestov <spes...@apple.com> wrote:


On Oct 24, 2016, at 8:12 AM, Paul Cantrell <cantr...@pobox.com> wrote:


On Oct 24, 2016, at 5:09 AM, Slava Pestov via swift-evolution 
<swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

However protocols nested inside types and types nested inside protocols is 
still not supported, because protocols introduce a separate series of issues 
involving associated types and the ’Self’ type.

The hard part of getting nested generics right is what to do if a nested type 
‘captures’ generic parameters of the outer type. For non-protocol types, the 
behavior here is pretty straightforward.

If we allow protocols to be nested inside other types, we have to decide what 
to do if the protocol ‘closes over’ generic parameters of the outer type. For 
example,

struct A<T> {
protocol P {
func requirement() -> T
}
}

Presumably A<Int>.P and A<String>.P are distinct types, and A.P has a hidden 
associated type corresponding to the type parameter ’T’?

The other case is problematic too — the nested type might refer to an 
associated type of the outer protocol:

protocol P {
associatedtype A

struct T {
var value: A
}
}

Now writing P.T does not make sense, for the same reason that we cannot form an 
existential of type P.A. We could prohibit references to outer associated types 
of this form, or we could figure out some way to give it a meaning. If C is a 
concrete type conforming to P, then certainly C.T makes sense, for instance. 
Internally, the nested type A.T could have a hidden ‘Self’ generic type 
parameter, so that writing C.T is really the same as P.T<C>.

Protocols nested inside protocols also have the same issue.

FWIW, in almost all the situations where I’ve wanted to nest types inside 
protocols and generic types, it’s only as a namespacing convenience. Most 
often, it’s an enum type that’s used only by a single method, and having it at 
the top of the module namespace adds clutter.

Here’s a real life example pared down. I wish I could do this:

public struct ResponseContentTransformer<InputContentType, OutputContentType>: 
ResponseTransformer {

  public init(onInputTypeMismatch mismatchAction: InputTypeMismatchAction = 
.error) {
    ...
  }

  public enum InputTypeMismatchAction {  // Does not depend on generic types 
above
    case error
    case skip
    case skipIfOutputTypeMatches
  }

}

InputTypeMismatchAction is tightly associated with ResponseContentTransformer, 
and is confusing as a top-level type.

What do you think about providing a “no captures” modifier for nested types — 
like static inner classes in Java? Then Swift could provide the namespace 
nesting I wish for this without having to resolve the trickier type capture 
questions yet.

Alternatively, what if (1) outer types aren’t capture unless they’re 
referenced, and (2) nesting is only illegal if there’s a capture? Then my code 
above would compile, as would this:

public struct S<T> {
  public enum Foo {
    case yin
    case yang
  }
}

…but this wouldn’t:

public struct S<T> {
  public enum Foo {
    case yin(thing: T)  // capture of T illegal (for now)
    case yang
  }
}

Either of these approaches would allow hygienic namespacing now while leaving 
the door open to outer type capture in the future.

Yeah, this makes sense for a first cut at this feature.

Slava

Should I take a crack at writing up a proposal for this? Now? After ABI work is 
done? (Probably the latter “OK if no captures” approach?) Eager to help; don’t 
want to be in the way.

Just speaking for myself and not the whole team — I think you can submit the 
proposal at any time, we’re unlikely to get around to doing it, if you want to 
take a crack that would be great (again, with ‘no captures’ it’s “trivial”).

Slava


P


Sorry, let this slip. Proposal sent - 
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/pull/552

(Coming back to this after a very long time)

One very high-level comment: one of your early examples is making the Delegate 
of a view. Did you consider making this an Objective-C translation rule as 
well, so that *Delegate and *DataSource protocols would be imported as nested 
types within a class with the name signified by *, e.g., 

class UITableView {
  @objc(UITableViewDataSource)
  protocol DataSource { … }

  @objc(UITableViewDelegate)
  protocol Delegate { … }
}

- Doug



Yes, and platform SDK changes are mentioned under “Source Compatibility”.

I’ve removed the standard library stuff from it now, that can happen later. 
Would we be able to get the ball rolling on getting it reviewed?

Thanks

- Karl


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