New Issue: How to make things better for the user when forwarding a nilable class?

lydia-duncan-github · October 7, 2022, 11:30pm

20799, "lydia-duncan", "How to make things better for the user when forwarding a nilable class?", "2022-10-07T23:28:30Z"

github.com/chapel-lang/chapel

How to make things better for the user when forwarding a nilable class?

opened 11:28PM - 07 Oct 22 UTC

lydia-duncan

type: Design area: Language

I opened and closed two issues today because I forgot to write ```chapel var b…: shared Bar?; forwarding b!; ``` instead of ```chapel forwarding var b: shared Bar?; ``` The error messages were not super clear, I think the only reason I figured out for myself what was going on was because: - it didn't work for a method that wasn't an edge case - I've screwed this up before, iirc I think we should do one of two things: A. Ensure that we generate a warning for when forwarding a nilable class type without the `!` or B. Just always insert the `!` for the user if they forgot it. I don't think there's any scenario where it would work to call the forwarded method otherwise (but someone that is more educated on nilability might come up with a case I've missed)

I opened and closed two issues today because I forgot to write

var b: shared Bar?;
forwarding b!;

instead of

forwarding var b: shared Bar?;

The error messages were not super clear, I think the only reason I figured out for myself what was going on was because:

it didn't work for a method that wasn't an edge case
I've screwed this up before, iirc

I think we should do one of two things:
A. Ensure that we generate a warning for when forwarding a nilable class type without the ! or
B. Just always insert the ! for the user if they forgot it. I don't think there's any scenario where it would work to call the forwarded method otherwise (but someone that is more educated on nilability might come up with a case I've missed)