Why Do We Need to Annotate Escaping Closures in Swift?

This article addresses the common question of why Swift developers must manually annotate escaping closures with @escaping, even though the compiler can detect them. It explores insights from Swift creator Chris Lattner, explaining that the requirement is a quality-of-implementation feature that forces developers to consciously consider the implications of asynchronous behavior. The article argues this prevents runtime issues and encourages better API design, using personal anecdotes to illustrate the value of compiler-enforced awareness.