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The language backward compatibility with future versions is a big deal. Is this article accurate as to the state of the world? The thing that was always amazin

The language backward compatibility with future versions is a big deal. Is this article accurate as to the state of the world? The thing that was always amazing about Java, was that with every release of the JVM and language, they never broke backward compatibility in one release. They gave people a good 2 years between versions that had breaking changes. Is swift just not stable enough yet?

melling 10y ago
Java would have been a better language if they had breaking changes. However, they prioritized compatibility. Type erasure is a big compromise, for example. Personally, I thinks it's better to have breaking changes and a good conversation tool. Apple will have most Swift developers on Swift 3.x this year. Next year everyone will do the quick upgrade to Swift 4.x. Apple really takes advantage of migrating its users and developers to their latest versions. Swift is much less verbose than Objective C. I think it's better to deal with the changes. You'll still write less code: http://ctarda.com/2016/05/clarity-is-more-important-than-brevity-sometimes-you-can-have-both http://ctarda.com/2016/05/clarity-is-more-important-than-bre... https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/should-i-use-objective-c-or-swift-for-writing-ios-apps/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/should-i-use-objecti...
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  Sure, but look at the python community, 3 is still not being used everywhere because of non-backward compatible changes to the language. It's an easy thing to say, but I think the success of Java was mainly due to this. I agree that tyoe erasure was a horrible compromise, and they should have revisited it sooner, but the language never left you behind.
  - melling 10y ago
    That's because the Python community had a choice to stick with 2.x. If you go with Swift, Apple will make you upgrade.

melling 10y ago

Java would have been a better language if they had breaking changes. However, they prioritized compatibility. Type erasure is a big compromise, for example. Personally, I thinks it's better to have breaking changes and a good conversation tool. Apple will have most Swift developers on Swift 3.x this year. Next year everyone will do the quick upgrade to Swift 4.x. Apple really takes advantage of migrating its users and developers to their latest versions. Swift is much less verbose than Objective C. I think it's better to deal with the changes. You'll still write less code: http://ctarda.com/2016/05/clarity-is-more-important-than-brevity-sometimes-you-can-have-both http://ctarda.com/2016/05/clarity-is-more-important-than-bre... https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/should-i-use-objective-c-or-swift-for-writing-ios-apps/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/should-i-use-objecti...

bluejekyll 10y ago
Sure, but look at the python community, 3 is still not being used everywhere because of non-backward compatible changes to the language. It's an easy thing to say, but I think the success of Java was mainly due to this. I agree that tyoe erasure was a horrible compromise, and they should have revisited it sooner, but the language never left you behind.
- melling 10y ago
  That's because the Python community had a choice to stick with 2.x. If you go with Swift, Apple will make you upgrade.