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> Some source migration will be needed for many projects, although the number of source changes are quite modest compared to many previous major changes between

> Some source migration will be needed for many projects, although the number of source changes are quite modest compared to many previous major changes between Swift releases. It seems like the language still needs some time to be completely mature, or am I wrong? I haven't used it since 1.0

slavapestov 9y ago
The pace of breaking changes is slowing down. Swift 3.1 was intended to be source compatible with 3.0, and Swift 4 has a "Swift 3.2" mode which tries to be source compatible with 3.0/3.1.
- jorgemf 9y ago
  So, you agree with my comment? It still needs a bit more time to stabilize.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    Language stability may not be a goal.
    - jorgemf 9y ago
      That is a problem for medium-big projects.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        Not really. Xcode will automatically translate swift code to update it to a new version, and it has worked pretty well in most cases. The exception being the v2 to v3 transition, which was pretty onerous. My experience with some medium projects is that it costs me a morning every update. I'm okay with that because Swift is such a more productive and higher quality language than Objective C.
        jorgemf 9y ago
        Swift is not meant to target only Xcode. I am a Linux user and I would want to use swift for server development.
  - M4v3R 9y ago
    It seems it does, but they do put effort to make the transitions as easy as possible.
blub 9y ago
I got burned by the migration from 1.0 to 1.something and haven't used it since. Looks like it was the right choice, breaking changes are a major failure in language design IMO. I understand why they do it, but I don't like that they are getting away with it. Apple seem to be in this endless update cycle where they change stuff across hardware, operating systems and even programming languages. The customer doesn't have much choice: they either keep up or get left behind.
- jernfrost 9y ago
  I disagree. Compare macOS today with the initial OS X release and it is fundamentally the same system both UI wise and code wise. Windows and even Linux has seen far more dramatic UI shifts in the same period. Same goes with the code. Windows went from win32 C API to C++ API with MFC and ATL. Then they promoted COM and Visual Basic development. Only to change gears and make C# with a completely different API. Then winforms gets depricated. We get silverlight, WPF and then there has even been more stuff in later years and I lose track. Compare this to macOS which ever since OSX has used almost exclusively objective-c and cocoa. Even now with swift you can use cocoa, and pretty much all apple technologies you allready knew. C# made redundant all previous win32 and VB skills. The introduction of Java, python, ruby and Go have not let you use any previous skills or libraries. In this regard Swift is an amazing accomplishment as you can reuse so much existing skills and code.
  - oblio 9y ago
    Can you take code written for the initial Mac OS X release, compile it and run it on the last version? You can do that for Windows.
    - protomyth 9y ago
      They deprecated a lot of UI methods in the 10.4 timeframe so I would bet not. I’m sure someone has some code, but it is probably very limited.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    > Compare macOS today with the initial OS X release and it is fundamentally the same system both UI wise and code wise Try to make use of the JavaBridge, MacRuby, Quicktime, Carbon, Objective-C GC. I can get a few more examples if you wish.
deleted 9y ago
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slavapestov 9y ago

The pace of breaking changes is slowing down. Swift 3.1 was intended to be source compatible with 3.0, and Swift 4 has a "Swift 3.2" mode which tries to be source compatible with 3.0/3.1.

jorgemf 9y ago
So, you agree with my comment? It still needs a bit more time to stabilize.
- kobeya 9y ago
  Language stability may not be a goal.
  - jorgemf 9y ago
    That is a problem for medium-big projects.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Not really. Xcode will automatically translate swift code to update it to a new version, and it has worked pretty well in most cases. The exception being the v2 to v3 transition, which was pretty onerous. My experience with some medium projects is that it costs me a morning every update. I'm okay with that because Swift is such a more productive and higher quality language than Objective C.
      - jorgemf 9y ago
        Swift is not meant to target only Xcode. I am a Linux user and I would want to use swift for server development.
- M4v3R 9y ago
  It seems it does, but they do put effort to make the transitions as easy as possible.

blub 9y ago

I got burned by the migration from 1.0 to 1.something and haven't used it since. Looks like it was the right choice, breaking changes are a major failure in language design IMO. I understand why they do it, but I don't like that they are getting away with it. Apple seem to be in this endless update cycle where they change stuff across hardware, operating systems and even programming languages. The customer doesn't have much choice: they either keep up or get left behind.

jernfrost 9y ago
I disagree. Compare macOS today with the initial OS X release and it is fundamentally the same system both UI wise and code wise. Windows and even Linux has seen far more dramatic UI shifts in the same period. Same goes with the code. Windows went from win32 C API to C++ API with MFC and ATL. Then they promoted COM and Visual Basic development. Only to change gears and make C# with a completely different API. Then winforms gets depricated. We get silverlight, WPF and then there has even been more stuff in later years and I lose track. Compare this to macOS which ever since OSX has used almost exclusively objective-c and cocoa. Even now with swift you can use cocoa, and pretty much all apple technologies you allready knew. C# made redundant all previous win32 and VB skills. The introduction of Java, python, ruby and Go have not let you use any previous skills or libraries. In this regard Swift is an amazing accomplishment as you can reuse so much existing skills and code.
- oblio 9y ago
  Can you take code written for the initial Mac OS X release, compile it and run it on the last version? You can do that for Windows.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    They deprecated a lot of UI methods in the 10.4 timeframe so I would bet not. I’m sure someone has some code, but it is probably very limited.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  > Compare macOS today with the initial OS X release and it is fundamentally the same system both UI wise and code wise Try to make use of the JavaBridge, MacRuby, Quicktime, Carbon, Objective-C GC. I can get a few more examples if you wish.

deleted 9y ago

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