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What makes Swift a worthwhile/interesting/valuable language outside of the iOS ecosystem? It works well for macOS. But seriously, there are about one and a ha

What makes Swift a worthwhile/interesting/valuable language outside of the iOS ecosystem? It works well for macOS. But seriously, there are about one and a half billion iOS devices in active use, on a vibrant, alive market. That is an absolutely colossal market, and positing like all platforms are the same and therefore n platforms is better is a non-starter. Ocaml? F#? If you're targeting that market they have no relevance. The original guy's post was simply ridiculous. Apple has to accept reality that the smartphone market has matured and suddenly we're all writing web apps and abandoning the platform? To put it as succinctly as it can be stated: lol.

lmm 8y ago
> But seriously, there are about one and a half billion iOS devices in active use, on a vibrant, alive market. That is an absolutely colossal market, and positing like all platforms are the same and therefore n platforms is better is a non-starter. Sure. As long as Swift is the only way to program for iOS there will be people who have to use it for business reasons. But that's very different from claiming it's a growing/exciting/high-momentum language. > The original guy's post was simply ridiculous. Apple has to accept reality that the smartphone market has matured and suddenly we're all writing web apps and abandoning the platform? It's not going to disappear overnight. But smartphone sales are slowing (especially for Apple), the app store gold rush is over leaving an oversaturated marketplace, and a lot of unprofitable app makers are exiting the business one way or another. There will always be room for great app makers to make money - just as some companies still make money selling desktop software. But I wouldn't call it "vibrant", and I would think long and hard before entering that market right now - it really feels like we're on a downturn at the moment, at least to me.
- endorphone 8y ago
  It's a growing/exciting/high-momentum language. On a platform with 1.5 billion premium users and a very large developer base, it offers a modern, improved way of building software. That doesn't mean it's exciting to everyone, and it obviously isn't relevant to a Microsoft-shop middle-tier developer, for instance, but that doesn't matter. The app store "gold rush" has been over for almost a decade. Now it's lots of very profitable little niches, and a lot of companies doing very well for themselves.

lmm 8y ago

> But seriously, there are about one and a half billion iOS devices in active use, on a vibrant, alive market. That is an absolutely colossal market, and positing like all platforms are the same and therefore n platforms is better is a non-starter. Sure. As long as Swift is the only way to program for iOS there will be people who have to use it for business reasons. But that's very different from claiming it's a growing/exciting/high-momentum language. > The original guy's post was simply ridiculous. Apple has to accept reality that the smartphone market has matured and suddenly we're all writing web apps and abandoning the platform? It's not going to disappear overnight. But smartphone sales are slowing (especially for Apple), the app store gold rush is over leaving an oversaturated marketplace, and a lot of unprofitable app makers are exiting the business one way or another. There will always be room for great app makers to make money - just as some companies still make money selling desktop software. But I wouldn't call it "vibrant", and I would think long and hard before entering that market right now - it really feels like we're on a downturn at the moment, at least to me.

endorphone 8y ago
It's a growing/exciting/high-momentum language. On a platform with 1.5 billion premium users and a very large developer base, it offers a modern, improved way of building software. That doesn't mean it's exciting to everyone, and it obviously isn't relevant to a Microsoft-shop middle-tier developer, for instance, but that doesn't matter. The app store "gold rush" has been over for almost a decade. Now it's lots of very profitable little niches, and a lot of companies doing very well for themselves.