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My main issue with Swift, at least initially, was how much of a moving target it was/(is?). It's been in public use for under five years and it's already on it'

My main issue with Swift, at least initially, was how much of a moving target it was/(is?). It's been in public use for under five years and it's already on it's 5th major version. I'd learn it to a certain degree, start working on something else, then come back and find that a lot had changed while I wasn't paying attention. That said, the difficulty in iOS development stems from getting a good understanding of the core libraries, and thats much easier to do in Swift than in Objective-C (unless you're already familiar with that language or coming from something like Smalltalk).

saagarjha 7y ago
Swift is no longer a moving target.
plorkyeran 7y ago
Swift 3 was the last version that had dramatic changes. The first two years it was pretty upfront about being a work-in-progress that wasn't for people who wanted something stable, and the last two years it's been pretty stable with only very minor incremental changes.
- infinisil 7y ago
  > The first two years it was pretty upfront about being a work-in-progress that wasn't for people who wanted something stable I've been very much on the Swift train in its first 2 years, but I've never heard of anything like that. Do you have a source?
  - pixelrevision 7y ago
    https://swift.org/blog/abi-stability-and-more/ https://swift.org/blog/abi-stability-and-more/ Almost every release has been pushing towards this. That’s not to say that that swift has been “unstable” as it was pretty solid from the beginning but they did make it pretty clear that you would need to accept a lot of changes in the early days.
- cageface 7y ago
  Apple pushed swift as production ready from the moment it was announced. This was a mistake as it was in fact years away from production quality. Now I wouldn’t even consider starting a new app in ObjC but it’s been a bumpy road to get to this point and the tooling is still pretty bad in some respects.

saagarjha 7y ago

Swift is no longer a moving target.

plorkyeran 7y ago

Swift 3 was the last version that had dramatic changes. The first two years it was pretty upfront about being a work-in-progress that wasn't for people who wanted something stable, and the last two years it's been pretty stable with only very minor incremental changes.

infinisil 7y ago
> The first two years it was pretty upfront about being a work-in-progress that wasn't for people who wanted something stable I've been very much on the Swift train in its first 2 years, but I've never heard of anything like that. Do you have a source?
- pixelrevision 7y ago
  https://swift.org/blog/abi-stability-and-more/ https://swift.org/blog/abi-stability-and-more/ Almost every release has been pushing towards this. That’s not to say that that swift has been “unstable” as it was pretty solid from the beginning but they did make it pretty clear that you would need to accept a lot of changes in the early days.
cageface 7y ago
Apple pushed swift as production ready from the moment it was announced. This was a mistake as it was in fact years away from production quality. Now I wouldn’t even consider starting a new app in ObjC but it’s been a bumpy road to get to this point and the tooling is still pretty bad in some respects.