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Interesting, in the context of Xamarin acquisition by Microsoft. Swift can very well spoil C#'s steam.
by manojlds 11y ago
Interesting, in the context of Xamarin acquisition by Microsoft. Swift can very well spoil C#'s steam.
- nbevans 11y agoF# is already spoiling Swift's feathers. And F# has first class support in Xamarin.
- nbevans 11y agoIt seems two people here were left thinking "I'm going to down vote this because the truth hurt me :(" So I am sorry for that :)
- Touche 11y agoI would say that React Native is the biggest threat there.
- mixedCase 11y agoDoesn't perform well enough outside of high-end devices.
- mwcampbell 11y agoDo you have anything to back that up?
- seivan 11y agoRun some lists with images on them on iPhone 5. Anecdotal, and I am sure you can dig into metal to improve performance, but out of the box, it's kinda poor. I still like React and I'm hopeful React-Native will improve.
- mwcampbell 11y agoThanks. I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that JavaScriptCore can't use JIT compilation when running in an iOS application other than Safari.
- andrewjl 11y agoAs of iOS 8 that's no longer the case. JSC JIT compilation can be used in native apps. (It's also used by WKWebView.) http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/JavaScriptCore http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/JavaScriptCore "JavaScriptCore is an optimizing virtual machine. JavaScriptCore consists of the following building blocks: lexer, parser, start-up interpreter (LLInt), baseline JIT, a low-latency optimizing JIT (DFG), and a high-throughput optimizing JIT (FTL)."
- DerekL 11y agoApps can use JavaScriptCore, and JavaScriptCore can use JIT, but these can't happen together, because third-party apps aren't permitted to execute writeable memory. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22281265/is-javascriptcore-framework-on-ios-7-using-jit-compilation http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22281265/is-javascriptcor...
- andrewjl 11y agoThis is good to know. Looks like the only way to make use of JIT (by someone who isn't Apple) is to use a WKWebView to execute the JS.
- ewmailing 11y agoI haven't used React Native, but I've done quite a bit with native bridging with JavaScriptCore and v8. If your performance bottlenecks are crossing the Javascript-to-native boundary, JIT can't help you. And crossing the bridge boundary isn't the cheapest operation.
- mwcampbell 11y ago
- fotidim 11y agoAs long as React Native requires the developer to use Javascript to write his code this is a no go for the sane of us.
- miguelrochefort 11y agoSwift isn't a significant improvement over C#. Also, keep in mind that C# benefits from the whole Microsoft ecosystem, which includes Visual Studio. Beyond the language, what's even more important is the application model. That's where frameworks like React Native have the edge. This might change if Microsoft upgrades Xamarin.Forms into full-blown Universal Windows App support (think WPF on iOS and Android).
- untog 11y ago> C# benefits from the whole Microsoft ecosystem, which includes Visual Studio. Both good and bad. Visual Studio isn't cross-platform, for example.
- kbenson 11y agoWell, Visual Studio Code[1] is, so it may be coming in the future. 1: https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/code-vs.aspx https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/code-vs.aspx
- untog 11y agoThey're entirely different products, Code is built from the ground up. So I'm not sure it makes a cross-platform Visual Studio more likely.
- kbenson 11y agoI would say the fact MS is shipping products on Linux, considering their historical stance, makes it more likely, but your sentiment is probably correct in that it may not mean it is likely. Ten years ago I would have laughed at the idea. Today, I have to think quite a bit more about whether it's likely.
- st3v3r 11y agoI would not use the existence of an editor built on web technologies as opening the possibility that something as entrenched in Windows as Visual Studio would be leaping to cross platform.
- wsc981 11y agoI would expect this just to be basic Swift support including -perhaps- the Foundation library (String, Array and other "low level" functionality). I don't think this Swift port has currently any easy way to create apps with a graphical user interface using some sort of Java bridge. So compared to Xamarin, using Swift for Android apps would be pretty limited. But please correct me if I'm wrong.
- stormbrew 11y agoSwift String, Array, etc. are not part of Foundation, they are part of the swift runtime library. They have mechanisms for converting to and from NSArray/NSString representations, though (and because of that, their internal structure is quite similar). But that mechanism is disabled in Linux (and obviously I assume Android).
- JonathonW 11y agoThat's correct-- Swift's native String/Array/etc. are part of Swift's native stdlib. NSString/NSArray and friends (along with the bridging code to go between them and the Swift stdlib types) are part of the open-source Foundation, though. Eventually, that should be present in any reasonably complete Swift runtime environment-- it includes APIs, like networking and date/time handling, that would typically be considered essential but aren't part of Swift's stdlib.
- wmil 11y agoPeople focus far too much on different languages. The fact that Android and iOS have very different UI libraries is usually a much bigger problem. Xamarin's big selling point is a cross platform ui library.
- leonatan 11y agoLowest common denominator. Terrible for UX for everything but the most basic UI designs, sorry. Each platform requires UI work to make it really fit the platform in question.
- Harimwakairi 11y agoTrue, but Microsoft is such an enterprise company that it fits their customer base really well (e.g. "I don't care if it's pretty, I just need an inexpensive-to-build app for my 3,000 workers that runs on either platform").
- leonatan 11y agoI get that. But I also think that companies are slowly understanding that UI and UX matters. Even in the enterprise sector.
- systems 11y agobut i would say for writing business apps, this isnt really an issue most business users would accept that their apps, look slighly ... unlike common apps on the platform
- LeoNatan25 11y agoWhich users? Admins don't care about UX, they care about ticking checkboxes to appease management. End users are people like you and me, they want quality from their software. They may be forced to work with less then stellar software, but that does not mean they accept it.
- josephearl 11y ago
- partiallypro 11y agoWhy? Microsoft will likely offer Swift support in the UWA platform soon, they already support Objective C. I suspect they will announce Swift is now supported under project Islandwood at Build.
- manojlds 11y agoMy comment was on C#, and not Microsoft.
- skrowl 11y agoC# devs like myself are interested in Xamarin are interested because they don't have too learn new language / tooling to do mobile dev. Learning Swift isn't any more appealing than learning Objective C.
- michaelwww 11y agoI care about syntax so Swift is far more appealing to me. Compare print("Hello, world!") in Swift to Hello World in Objective-C, which the article jokingly calls "gibberish." https://www.binpress.com/tutorial/objectivec-lesson-1-hello-world/41 https://www.binpress.com/tutorial/objectivec-lesson-1-hello-...
- Aleman360 11y agoIt would be great if Swift could target .Net Core.
- michaelwww 11y agoI did a little googling because you sparked my curiosity and it's happening. “Silver” brings Apple's Swift language to .NET and I found at least one mention of Silver and .NET Core.
- V-2 11y agoFar from likely. For those fed up with Java, Android has Kotlin already.
- insulanian 11y agoJust my thought.