SE-0483: `InlineArray` Literal Syntax

[scanon (Steve Canon)]

@xwu

While the language steering group has reached no conclusion on this proposal, it may be worth mentioning that @GreatApe is technically correct that, well over a decade ago and in a thread that is too buried to locate even via search (and therefore based only on foggy memory), the core team as it was then constituted did pronounce, after a very long discussion just like this one, that (inspired by LLVM) they had made up their mind to adopt 4xInt as the sugar for this type in Swift when it should exist (and even though no such type existed at the time).

Proposal: Contiguous Variables (A.K.A. Fixed Sized Array Type)

To better support interfacing with lower level systems, like graphics libraries for example, it would be helpful to support the concept of contiguous variables. The most common use case for this would be to create a Matrix struct that can be passed as data into something like Metal. This can be accomplished now, using something like the following: Current Option 1: struct Matrix2x2 {     var m00: Float     var m01: Float     var m10: Float     var m11: Float } OR Current Option 2: s…

I think there's one thing worth noting from this discussion, which is that, to a good approximation, there have been essentially no new ideas for syntax in the intervening decade, which is strong evidence that delaying introducing sugar is not going to magically result in "better" sugar.

I think one can argue about whether or not sugar is needed, but if it's decided that we should have it, there's nothing to gain from deferring adding it.