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Update on the Swift Project Lead
- sdegutis 10y agoVery professionally done. Hope all goes well for everyone involved. Anyone know what this "opportunity in another space" is?
- dorianm 10y agoNothing mentioned in his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lattner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lattner
- timjver 10y agoTesla, apparently.
- hinkley 10y agoI was going to make a joke about him taking a job working for Musk and working on an opportunity IN space. I was half right...
- Hydraulix989 10y agoLots of great people leaving Apple right now, not a good sign.
- dochtman 10y agoWho else?
- lucky_cloud 10y agoSal Soghoian, former Product Manager of Automation Technologies, although he left because they eliminated his position.
- menix 10y agoMark Gurman even mentioned a lot of good people were leaving the company. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/how-apple-alienated-mac-loyalists https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/how-apple...)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mrkd 10y agoDaniel Gross - https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/10/daniel-gross-of-apple-leaves-to-become-y-combinators-newest-partner/?ncid=rss https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/10/daniel-gross-of-apple-leav...
- mrkd 10y agoMatt Casebolt left for Tesla too https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/11/matt-casebolt-touchbar-macbook/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/11/matt-casebolt-touchbar-macboo...
- flamedoge 10y agobest wishes
- mnem 10y agoI suspect there are a few good people in the 33,000 others employed there.
- Hydraulix989 10y agoWe're talking TOP tier world-class employees (director of ML, lead dev of Swift), lots of lost mind share, not just any ordinary of the 33,000 rank and file. The best engineers often make lasting and drastic contributions and even have some say regarding the direction of the company itself.
- adamnemecek 10y agoLet's start speculating what he might do instead. I have a hunch that this might pursue some Bret Victor-esque product maybe something like Swift Playgrounds for the iPad but less educational and more dev oriented. But I'm basing that on relatively nothing.
- sdegutis 10y agoIf my understanding of the universe is correct, he's going to join a really high paying start-up gig working on a "revolutionary" new email app that's basically slightly cooler than what we already have now, and then Apple will acquire them in 3 years, and he'll get a big payout, and then retire, which means start his own start up making a revolutionary new iOS app for teaching kids to code.
- adamnemecek 10y agoThat doesn't seem to be his style. He's been doing developer tools for a while now and I can't imagine that he'd be switching. And I think that he has better options than an email startup. LLVM is one of the most important software projects ever.
- flamedoge 10y agoHe's started and incubated it to what most considers as success. What's left to do is more research and evolution.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bluetwo 10y agoI hear he is going to work at an incubator started by the guy who sold the airline booking aggregator Aviato to a major airline in 2008. ;-)
- FlorianRappl 10y ago
- fataliss 10y agoGood for him. He saw another opportunity he wanted to pursue, went for it, makes a smooth transition, communicates about it. 10/10
- mozumder 10y agoI'm wondering if this means that the major work on Swift the language is complete? I've avoided it since it seems every year the language or the API changes... has it now settled? I really didn't want to go back rewriting code every year.
- AlexeyBrin 10y agoThey've promised source code compatibility starting with Swift 3.0 and up. This means that in theory you should be able to recompile a Swift 3 code with the Swift 4 compiler.
- kibwen 10y agoThere's some nuance to the definition of source code compatibility: > The Swift 4 compiler will include a language compatibility flag -swift-version that accepts 3 or 4 as arguments and controls the compatibility mode (SR- 2582 <https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-2582> https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-2582>). > The -swift-version 3 compatibility mode has the goal of source compatibility as much as practically possible with Swift 3.x (including 3, 3.0.x, 3.x). > The -swift-version 4 compatibility allows approved source code breakages from Swift 3.x (including 3, 3.0.x, 3.x). https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20161128/029099.html https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mo... TL;DR: there may be breaking source changes between Swift 3 and Swift 4, but the Swift 4 compiler will still be capable of compiling Swift 3 code. There's no indication whether the Swift 5 compiler will still be able to compile Swift 3 code, so you'll likely still have to migrate your codebase within a year or two.
- emdowling 10y agoBy all accounts, we won't see another change on the same level as Swift 2.0 -> Swift 3.0 for some time. Having shipped production apps for all major releases of Swift, it definitely feels like the syntax and foundation of the language has settled in 3.0. Now it seems more focused on building on top of that.
- asow92 10y agoIf you're truly worried, I would hold off just a little bit longer. Swift ABI stability is slated for Swift 4.
- emdowling 10y agoGood on him. As others have said, well-communicated move. He is leaving Swift in an excellent position and has set up an outstanding structure where Swift is way more than just one person. He spent more than 5 years building Swift inside Apple, so I can definitely understand he is ready for his next challenge. Can't wait to see what it is!
- vcorleone 10y agoTesla
- admstockdale 10y agoI quickly read this as Chris Laettner and then quickly realized there's no way he ever worked at Apple.
- coldcode 10y agoI wonder who will take over managing Xcode and the other tools now, which was his other role.
- caycep 10y agoIt's maybe too much to read into it, but I hope this isn't reflecting on anything internally on Apple, even though the kremlinology of it can get overly dramatic. 5 years at any one tech company is a long time, though...
- dottrap 10y agoLattner joined Apple in 2005. That's even longer than 5 years.
- dorianm 10y agoTed Kremenek doesn't seem to be a very active contributor of Swift. https://github.com/tkremenek https://github.com/tkremenek https://github.com/apple/swift/graphs/contributors https://github.com/apple/swift/graphs/contributors
- flamedoge 10y agowhat about mailing lists? swift-evolution?
- bratsche 10y agoAnd yet Chris still thought he was fit to lead the group. Maybe in a project leadership role it's not all about how many commits you make?
- elldoubleyew 10y agoNumber of commits != overall impact on the language/community. I think he will serve this role just fine.
- pjmlp 10y agoThe best project managers I worked with, didn't write one single line of code on the projects.
- coldtea 10y agoWhich is good, since he will lead (and is a contributor, so at least knows the technical details) as opposed to being burdened with day to day coding?
- mrec 10y agoI don't use or follow Swift, but Chris was also instrumental in the development of LLVM, which has become hugely important in all sorts of areas. Has he still been active in that while working on Swifty stuff, or have other people taken over there already?
- Aqua_Geek 10y agoI went to the LLVM Developers' Meeting this year, and Chris seems still very much involved in LLVM (at least from a management perspective -- he serves on the board of the LLVM Foundation).
- DannyBee 10y agoChris is basically just an occasional contributor to llvm code itself at this point, but serves heavily on the board.
- ddoolin 10y agoThank you Chris for your significant contributions to the Swift project, and good luck to Ted in the new role!
- mrkd 10y agoThanks to Chris for all his work on Swift. I can't see this any other way than a big loss for Apple.
- gmosx 10y agoI didn't see that coming, very disappointing news. Definitely a loss for Apple and Swift. I really hope he will somehow stay involved with the project.
- timjver 10y agoDid you read the email at all? This decision wasn't made lightly, and I want you all to know that I’m still completely committed to Swift. I plan to remain an active member of the Swift Core Team, as well as a contributor to the swift-evolution mailing list.
- Jugurtha 10y agoFrom the guidelines[0]: >Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." Not nitpicking, but we can miss things or we can be looking at different things. Case in point, one time on a Python mailing list, I asked a question and one person pasted something from the docs. I had read the docs for what I was trying to do before asking the question, specifically the paragraph pasted and I just thought "How could I have missed that?". It turned out they were pasting the docs from Python 3 and I was reading the docs for Python 2.7. The paragraph was identical in every respect, except for the particular thing I was talking about which was changed with Python 3. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Aradalf 10y agoExcept that doesn't apply when the "article" is all of 5 sentences.
- Jugurtha 10y agoYou're not wrong. We don't know that the commenter has read that Lattner wrote he'll continue to be involved and wondered if he will in fact continue to be involved once Swift no longer becomes his main activity. Whether we like or not, it will have a smaller mind share than it did when it was his main priority and his job revolved around it.
- pcwalton 10y agoChris has been nothing but a pleasure to interact with every time we've met. Best of luck in his new endeavors. Really excited to see what he'll pursue next. :)
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- purple-dragon 10y agoWelp... there goes the last of the innovators I admired/followed at Apple. Edit: perhaps the problem is that you assume I'm just tossing gasoline on the ever-loved and popular rag-on-Apple fire. I have been an active clang/llvm user for 6 years, I have written numerous clang plugins over the years, and I am an active swift developer. Every device I own is made by Apple and has been since 2004. I am genuinely puzzled why this comment is so unpopular (at least, considerably more so than goofy unfounded speculations about what Chris will do next—see above).
- purple-dragon 10y agoSo... are you down voting my comment because you don't consider it a quality comment, or do you just not like what I have to say?
- spiralganglion 10y agoI suspect people don't see it as a quality comment. Generally short or insubstantial comments receive a more positive response when the tone is positive. Negative, insubstantial comments tend to be downvoted. (I didn't up or down vote, I'm just echoing how it reads to me) Edit: Had your original comment included that extra backstory/justification, it surely wouldn't have been hammered with downvotes. Without it, it just reads like snark.
- purple-dragon 10y agoLesson learned; thanks!
- dnautics 10y agoI would have also liked to specifically know which other innovators you admired at Apple and what they moved on to.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- geoffmac 10y agothis is the worst news ever. worse than all recent negative Apple press
- iagooar 10y agoSwift 4? Wow, they surely are iterating quick... How's the backwards compatibility in Swift between major versions? If I understood correctly, Swift 3 was supposed to be the first production-ready release. Or am I wrong?
- eridius 10y agoSwift 3's goal was source stability, but Swift 2 and arguably Swift 1 were production-ready. Swift 4's goal is ABI stability, as well as source compatibility (via a compiler flag) with Swift 3 code. In any case, Swift is basically incrementing by one major version per year. Swift 1.0 was September 2014, Swift 2.0 was September 2015, and Swift 3.0 was September 2016.
- melling 10y agoPeople shipped with Swift 2. There were lots of source changes in 3. XCode converted many. 4 will have few changes but it should be an easy conversion. Personally, I love Swift. Creating my own Swift Cookbook to help myself and others find solutions quickly. http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift_cookbook.html http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift_cookbook.html
- xenadu02 10y agoSwift 4 has source-level compatibility with Swift 3 though a compiler flag. Some features obviously won't be available but existing code should work. This even goes so far as to present APIs differently so they continue to work (e.g. if a method was renamed Swift 3 mode will continue to offer the old name). Swift 4 also has ABI stability as a goal so the OSes can begin shipping the Swift Standard Library.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- DoodleBuggy 10y agoMaybe not too excited about Xcode for iPad?
- realstuff 10y ago> Chris Lattner clattner at apple.com And this is why one should not use @company.com email :)
- oldgun 10y agoGood for him. I believe he's gonna make tremendous contributions whether or not he's at Apple. Now that without all the restrictions from Apple, he might be free to achieve even more.
- twsted 10y agoI don't think he has had that many restrictions at Apple. BTW I really admire the guy and I followed him closely as I used to do with others like Dave Hyatt. People from the open-source world or researchers that have given a solid contribution to Apple over the years, and not only from the technical point of view.
- throwaway7645 10y agoWindows support ever coming? I love Linux, but have to use Windows for work due to strict IT policies. It really frustrates me that almost all the new exciting tech can't be accessed by me outside of the hobby world. To me, C# just isn't very productive. Great language, just not for me.
- civility 10y agoIt gets worse. My software has to run on my customer's computers. These can be any of RHEL 5, 6, or (rarely) 7. It'll be a few years before I can safely deliver C++ 11 software, and I snicker at the Pythonistas complaining about how people don't migrate from 2.7 to 3.x --- I frequently need to support Python 2.6. Rust, Swift, C++14, Python 3, etc... are all several years in the future for me.
- burntsushi 10y agoCan you compile a completely static executable and ship that? Or do you need to compile on distributions as old as RHEL 5?
- civility 10y agoIt needs to compile (at least the C or C++ parts). Frequently the people who operate the software will want to make small changes.
- thijsc 10y agoI know from experience that it is possible to build Rust binaries that work on very old Linux versions. You could for example supply them with a Docker image with a new build stack which can produce binaries they could copy to the old machines. The same is likely true for Go.
- wyldfire 10y agoUnfortunately docker couldn't be used on RHEL5, it requires 3.10 or newer. But a disk image/qemu could work.
- bkbridge 10y agoHmmm, going from someone with a pretty big Wikipedia page, to someone with just a linkedin entry. Guess it's fine. But Apple seems to be in a bit of a tail spin as of late. Sure they'll do amazing.
- hk__2 10y agoHaving a Wikipedia means you’re quite known. Not having one doesn’t mean you’re incompetent.
- J0-nas 10y agoGood for him. I'm excited what his next job is. I sincerely hope it's another project that sooner or later is accessible for the public.
- tatoalo 10y agoHe went to Tesla as VP of Autopilot SW. Really interesting! https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris-lattner https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris-lattner
- Matthias247 10y agoGreat - maybe he can introduce a new programming language and/or associated tooling to the automotive world. It's quite depressing that all those systems are still built with a subset of C/C++. And often even not the safest subset, when I think about the dozens of variants of custom memory management that I have already seen implemented - with possibilites for OOM everywhere.
- ricw 10y agoThis is seemingly quite a different technical skill set to have than his previous position. I'm curious as to whether Tesla wants to also transition to swift for automotive code, or whether Chris Lattner was already involved in apple's car project (project titan). Either way, a big win for Tesla and quite a loss for Apple.
- SEJeff 10y agoTesla's AP is seemingly built ontop of Nvidia hardware, which is programmed using CUDA. CUDA is built ontop of LLVM, which Chris Lattner created. Seems like an obvious fit if you look at it from a purely technology perspective.
- sv3nss0n 10y agoObviously he leaves for Tesla. https://twitter.com/TeslaMotors/status/818941362171158528 https://twitter.com/TeslaMotors/status/818941362171158528
- animex 10y ago(Interior) Apple HQ, One Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA... COOK: JUST SAY IT ISN'T TESLA. A chair suddenly flies across the room.
- shadowfacts 10y agoHe's joining Tesla as the VP of Autopilot Software: https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris-lattner https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris-lattner.
- bsaul 10y agoAouch... And there goes my enthusiasm for this language. I already felt weird knowing Apple didn't use swift internally for their core product, and seing all the huge bugs and crashes remaining in the swift compiler, now i'm left wondering who in the company is going to have sufficient weight to push this language forward. EDIT : well, on the positive side, he's now free to make the language evolve without caring about the huge objective-c bridging layer and iOS-specific troubles...
- xenadu02 10y agoA programming language transition takes many years. The toolchain must stabilize. Once you nail things down you add ABI stability so the OS can ship with the standard libraries. Only then can you begin rewriting core components. It is already publicly known that some components are written in Swift, e.g.: the macOS Dock is a Swift application.
- avivo 10y agoPerhaps slightly off topic, but relevant to the community—Hacker News comments on stories like this are now being "reported." As one author mentioned at Business Insider, a site where people write about business stuff: > 'As one person said on Hacker News, a site where programmers chat about stuff: "He is leaving Swift in an excellent position and has set up an outstanding structure where Swift is way more than just one person. He spent more than 5 years building Swift inside Apple, so I can definitely understand he is ready for his next challenge."' http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-lattner-swift-creator-leaves-apple-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-lattner-swift-creator-l...
- Dangeranger 10y agoIt would seem to me that the reporter should have at the very least reached out to the commenter they were quoting and asked for permission to use them as a source. If it were me writing the story I would have made very sure the source was also reputable and confirmable, as that is not always the case in public forums, regardless of the usually high quality nature of HN commenters.
- avivo 10y agoWhat if you had only an hour or so to research, write, and publish in order to meet your daily quota? "If they were writing five posts a day, one former employee recalled, Blodget [CEO of Business Insider] urged them to write six." http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/29/media/business-insider-staff-exodus/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/29/media/business-insider-staff... These sorts of incentives (and the resulting "reporting" quality) are the natural result of the web we have created.
- Dangeranger 10y agoI agree with your sentiment. My feeling is however that the existing incentives are the problem, and they result in low quality journalism.
- sctb 10y agoLatest discussion of Chris leaving Apple to join Tesla: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13369510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13369510.