* What is your evaluation of the proposal?

Against.

As self.an self.example, self.you can self.see how much self.harder it is to 
self.understand this self.sentence. We self.are self.not self.designed to 
self.scan words with self.self. in self.front of self.them.

The problem with this proposal is simply that using “self.blah” all over the 
place makes the code less readable. Yes, it can eliminate a certain class of 
programmer errors. But, for example, I could argue that we could eliminate a 
certain class of programmer errors if every time we typed in a variable we had 
to manually enter its type, so like,

foo = foo + 1

must be

foo.Int = foo.Int + 1.Int

Obviously this is a pathological example because the compiler would catch the 
error in this case anyhow, but my point is that extra words have a cost in 
terms of programmer comprehension, and sometimes the cost isn’t worth an 
incremental gain in safety.

Right now Swift is extremely readable and clean. Let’s keep it that way!


* Is the problem being addressed significant enough to warrant a change to 
Swift?

The problem is big enough but the solution isn’t good enough.


* Does this proposal fit well with the feel and direction of Swift?

It would if I agreed with the solution.


* If you have you used other languages or libraries with a similar feature, how 
do you feel that this proposal compares to those?

I’ve used Objective-C for 26 years, although obviously the “self.” style 
properties are (relatively) recent.


* How much effort did you put into your review? A glance, a quick reading, or 
an in-depth study?

I’ve coded a ton in Swift and considered the arguments for. I also briefly 
considered this proposal myself a while ago, but decided that it was just too 
wordy to be worth the extra safety.

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