Swift wants a greater language reference – Ole Begemann

In August 2020, I posted a rant on the Swift boards concerning the poor state of Swift documentation. Nothing got here of it, however I wish to reiterate one level I made then: the Swift mission sorely wants a searchable, linkable language reference.

To be truthful, Swift does have a language reference: the eponymous part in The Swift Programming Language (TSPL) incorporates a lot of the info I’d anticipate from such a useful resource. However that part isn’t nicely structured to function an precise reference:

TSPL just isn’t searchable

The TSPL web site doesn’t have a search subject. Even when it had one, I think about it will be a full-text search over the whole website, as is frequent (and acceptable) for a guide. A language reference wants a special search engine:

• Trying to find key phrases (if, case, the place) should reliably discover the documentation for the key phrase as the highest consequence. I don’t wish to see the tons of of pages that include the phrase “if” of their physique textual content.

• I’d love to have the ability to seek for punctuation. Think about in case you might seek for an emblem equivalent to # and it will present you an inventory of all syntax parts that use this image. ^{This may be very informative and an effective way to discover the language, not only for inexperienced persons — particularly with good IDE integration (see under). Swift is such a giant and complicated language that most individuals gained’t know each language characteristic.}

A language reference wants a search engine that is aware of to deal with key phrases and punctuation.

TSPL just isn’t linkable

Pages in TSPL are typically lengthy, with many separate objects crammed right into a single web page. For instance, all compiler attributes are documented on a single web page.

Sharing a hyperlink to a particular attribute, equivalent to @resultBuilder, is troublesome if you realize your approach round HTML and just about inconceivable in case you don’t (to not point out the unhealthy URL).

As a reader, opening such a hyperlink is disorienting because it drops you in the course of a really lengthy web page, 95 % of which is irrelevant to you.

The reader expertise is even poorer whenever you arrive from a search engine (as most individuals would as a result of the positioning has no search perform): TSPL is among the prime outcomes for swift resultbuilder on Google, nevertheless it drops you on the prime of the superlong web page on Attributes, with no indication the place to seek out the knowledge you’re in search of.

Each language assemble, key phrase, attribute, and compiler directive ought to have its personal, linkable web page.

TSPL is structured fallacious

The Language Reference part in TSPL is organized as if it was written for parser or compiler builders. It makes use of the language’s grammar as a place to begin and branches out into expressions, statements, declarations, and so forth.

For instance:

I don’t learn about you, however as a person of the language, that’s not how I take into consideration Swift or how I seek for documentation.

Along with search engine, a language reference wants an alphabetical index of each key phrase or different syntax aspect, with hyperlinks to the respective element web page.

IDE integration

I used to be cautious to make this a criticism concerning the documentation for Swift and never concerning the (equally poor) state of Apple’s developer documentation. Swift just isn’t restricted to app improvement for Apple units, and I consider it’s important for Swift to place itself as a standalone mission if it needs to be perceived as a viable general-purpose language.

It’s good that TSPL is hosted on swift.org and never developer.apple.com, and that’s additionally the place this new language reference I’m envisioning ought to dwell. (I additionally suppose it’s fallacious to host the Swift API documentation on developer.apple.com.)

However as soon as we’ve this language reference, Apple ought to after all combine it into Xcode for offline search and context-sensitive assist. Think about in case you might Choice-click not solely identifiers however any token in a supply file to see its documentation.

A number of examples:

• Clicking on if case let would clarify the sample matching syntax.
• Clicking on in would explains the assorted closure expression syntax variants.
• Clicking on #fileID would present you an instance of the ensuing string and examine it to #file and filePath.
• Clicking on @propertyWrapper would clarify what a property wrapper is and how one can implement one.
• Clicking on @dynamicMemberLookup would clarify its function and what you must do to implement it.
• Clicking on < in a generic declaration would clarify what generic parameters are and the way they’re used.
• Clicking on ? would present all language parts that use a query mark (shorthand for Optionals, non-compulsory chaining, Non-compulsory sample matching, strive?).
• Clicking on /// would record the magic phrases Xcode understands in doc feedback.

You get the concept. This may be such a giant assist, not just for inexperienced persons.

To summarize, that is the unhappy state of trying to find language options in Xcode’s documentation viewer:

And this mockup reveals the way it may very well be: