9 ms·

IBM Stops Server Side Swift Framework Development

156 points by samcat116 7y ago

wlesieutre 7y ago
Curious what this means for Kitura. Last I checked, the three major serverside Swift frameworks were Kitura, Vapor, and Perfect. Perfect doesn’t look like it’s under active development, and if this means Kitura stops being maintained, it’s down to just Vapor as an active project.
- todotask 7y ago
  I have tried three web frameworks, indeed, Perfect activities is less active although they came up some interesting UI tools for devs but CLI is always preferred. I do find Golang has fill microservice space where Kitura couldn’t gain traction.
veidr 7y ago
Two guys that IBM was paying to work on server-side Swift are stepping down from the server working group (presumably because IBM decided not to pay them to do that anymore). I think these guys were best known for Kitura, the (previously) IBM-backed web app framework. I don't do web apps in Swift "for realz" (I use TypeScript and tools like Angular and Koa.js for that kind of thing), but I do use Swift on Linux and have built some toy ones using both Kitura and Vapor. My impression is that Vapor gained a lot more traction than Kitura did, so in some ways this might just be "the market choosing" and Kitura heading for the sunset.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ksec 7y ago
I am wondering what this means in broader terms, IBM no longer have their weight behind Swift? ( Focusing more on Java which would make more sense from IBM perspective ) Or is this just not working on Web Framework ?
- unpluggedcord 7y ago
  Is it fair to say IBM threw their weight behind Swift?
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    They were an early adopter and for a while the only other large company putting significant effort into it.
tannernelson 7y ago
While it's sad to see IBM go, Vapor and the Swift Server working group are alive and more active than ever https://github.com/vapor/vapor/ https://github.com/vapor/vapor/ https://swift.org/server/ https://swift.org/server/ Amazon has also created a Swift web framework: https://github.com/amzn/smoke-framework https://github.com/amzn/smoke-framework
- samcat116 7y ago
  I’m excited for Vapor 4! Also love all the Vapor Red stuff.
thrower123 7y ago
Outside of iOS, is there really any traction for Swift development? It certainly feels like it is settling into an also-ran position. And really, mobile apps are turning out to be a dead-end, and people don't seem to be actually investing in native clients anymore, they just slap their website in a browser control.
- wwright 7y ago
  As an Apple fan and a programming language nerd, I have basically no interest in ever using the language. I spend a lot of time in C++, Haskell, Rust, and Kubernetes, but Swift just feels pointlessly complicated to me. (C++ I think is also pointlessly complicated, but the rest at least have a point ;-)
  - zepto 7y ago
    Swift is no more complicated than Haskell or Rust.
    - verttii 7y ago
      But Swift has had a more specific target platform, where it wouldn't make sense to produce excessively high level generic abstractions. Whereas a language like Haskell is happy to try some absurdly abstract concepts in the interest of promoting computer science.
    - Tainnor 7y ago
      If you don't use complicated compiler extensions (which, to be fair, many people do), then Haskell's complexity is more compositional. There are not a lot of fundamental concepts you need to understand; it's just their combination that creates the complexity (such as typeclasses like Monad). Swift's complexity feels much less compositional. There are still a lot of situations where I won't really know how certain features interact (especially when it comes to generics, associated types, etc.). Also, the documentation on some edge-cases is basically non-existant.
    - wwright 7y ago
jswny 7y ago
Does anyone know why IBM initially decided to throw some weight behind Swift?
- amdelamar 7y ago
  Could be from their partnership that started 2014. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2014/07/15Apple-and-IBM-Forge-Global-Partnership-to-Transform-Enterprise-Mobility/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2014/07/15Apple-and-IBM-Forge...
jrs95 7y ago
Apple really ought to invest more in server side Swift directly themselves. I feel like it has a lot of potential, and what the community has done with limited resources is impressive, but it's not really going to be able to gain substantial traction without a lot more weight behind it imo
- tannernelson 7y ago
  These things take time. A lot of people at Apple are heavily invested in Swift on the server, including the Swift core team: https://swift.org/server/ https://swift.org/server/ Swift itself still needs time to mature, too. Things like the memory model, async/await, generics, etc. The future is bright, it will just require some patience to get there.
  - verttii 7y ago
    There seems to be very little promotional stuff about the runtime for server-side. What's the story with that for Swift? I don't think many people are going to start learning Swift just to build servers with it unless the platform/runtime provides something special. Otherwise it'll stay isolated just to the current iOS devs.
ogre_codes 7y ago
Swift on the server is very new and has very small market share. At one time there were 3+ Swift frameworks competing for mindspace against piles of well established frameworks in other languages. That one framework is falling out of the mix isn't a big surprise.
The_rationalist 7y ago
What are the pros and cons of swift vs Kotlin for the server?
- favorited 7y ago
  They're very different languages under the hood. Kotlin's biggest strength is also it biggest weakness relative to Swift– it's all built on the JVM. It gets great integration with the mature Java ecosystem, but it has Java's downsides as well. On the server, the lack of JIT warmup & a smaller overall heap size could be differentiators for Swift, depending on the context.
mythz 7y ago
Pretty clear signal that there's low appetite for full stack development in Swift. What are other promising future "end-to-end" (i.e. Web / Server / Mobile) development platforms are there? IMO these are the main contenders: - JS / node.js / React Native (Android/iOS) (+ other transpile 2 JS langs, e.g. TypeScript, Clojure, Scala, OCaml, etc) - Kotlin to JavaScript / JVM / Android / Kotlin Native (iOS) - C# Blazor / ASP .NET Core / Xamarin (Android/iOS) - Dart JS / Dart VM / Flutter (Android/iOS) Rust/Go/C++ could get some mentions, but I don't think they have enough community or commercial backing to become a popular mainstream option.
- stock_toaster 7y ago
  For better or worse, I assume Rust and Go (and other future languages) will begin to start taking advantage of js VMs and js toolkits (frontend) via targeting (compilation) WASM at some point.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  People are actually already building stuff in Rust / <native code) / Rust (compiled to WASM running in a browser). The frontend frameworks in Rust are surprisingly good, and I wouldn't be too surprised if this becomes a mainstream option at some point. That said, I generally find there isn't all that much advantage to sharing a frontend and backend language.
  - mythz 7y ago
    Yeah they're mentions because it's being done in small niches (there's also Ruby/Haxe + many other transpile to JS languages), I just think they'll always lag behind the other popular and well supported contenders listed. I could be wrong but that's my impression after having worked on all of them which all provide decent development development experiences and end results - though they vary in strength amongst the different categories.
    - mhd 7y ago
      So you list Dart as being well supported on the server side? Did I miss some killer app/framework recently?
actionowl 7y ago
FWIW I’d really like to see Swift available in more platforms. At the moment only MacOS and Ubuntu seem to be supported (*BSD and perhaps Windows would be very welcome)
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Windows support is coming along nicely.
- favorited 7y ago
  Windows is unofficially supported, it's just in the 2nd-tier "community" CI environment. There's definitely still a lot of work to go, though. https://ci-external.swift.org/job/oss-swift-windows-x86_64/ https://ci-external.swift.org/job/oss-swift-windows-x86_64/
  - actionowl 7y ago
    I did not know this, good to hear!
- tachoknight 7y ago
  Swift is also available on Fedora/RedHat/Centos 8; simply type “dnf install swift-lang” * Disclaimer: I’m the packager for swift on those platforms.
  - actionowl 7y ago
    Nice! That was NOT the case when I last tried it, and I prefer RHEL-based distros when not using BSD. Thanks!
ofrzeta 7y ago
It's not a big surprise. A language is not only the language but also the ecosystem such as standard libs. Now when you have a language like Swift where half of the standard lib is not available on the dominant server platform (Linux) not many people are going to use it. Which is kind of sad because I like(d) Swift. Too bad no one was willing to untie the language from the Apple frameworks but obviously there was no party with enough resources to re-implement all of the ecosystem in a cross-platform manner.
Tainnor 7y ago
I think this is a very bad sign. Not necessarily because of Kitura (as others have mentioned, Vapor is more popular and quite active), but because IBM was the only major company that was at least somewhat invested in improving the server-side Swift ecosystem. Clearly, apple can't be bothered to fix some of the more serious issues with Swift on Linux. Just look at the kinds of discussions that e.g. Ian Partridge has contributed to: https://forums.swift.org/u/ianpartridge/summary https://forums.swift.org/u/ianpartridge/summary It includes substantial work on Docker images, logging, crash debugging, etc. Maybe google will become a bit more invested in the Swift on Linux side of things, but so far I haven't really seen them invest in the ecosystem (besides pushing differentiable programming, which is cool, but it's mostly satisfying a niche requirement).

156 points by samcat116 7y ago

Curious what this means for Kitura. Last I checked, the three major serverside Swift frameworks were Kitura, Vapor, and Perfect. Perfect doesn’t look like it’s under active development, and if this means Kitura stops being maintained, it’s down to just Vapor as an active project.

todotask 7y ago
I have tried three web frameworks, indeed, Perfect activities is less active although they came up some interesting UI tools for devs but CLI is always preferred. I do find Golang has fill microservice space where Kitura couldn’t gain traction.

veidr 7y ago

Two guys that IBM was paying to work on server-side Swift are stepping down from the server working group (presumably because IBM decided not to pay them to do that anymore). I think these guys were best known for Kitura, the (previously) IBM-backed web app framework. I don't do web apps in Swift "for realz" (I use TypeScript and tools like Angular and Koa.js for that kind of thing), but I do use Swift on Linux and have built some toy ones using both Kitura and Vapor. My impression is that Vapor gained a lot more traction than Kitura did, so in some ways this might just be "the market choosing" and Kitura heading for the sunset.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ksec 7y ago

I am wondering what this means in broader terms, IBM no longer have their weight behind Swift? ( Focusing more on Java which would make more sense from IBM perspective ) Or is this just not working on Web Framework ?

unpluggedcord 7y ago
Is it fair to say IBM threw their weight behind Swift?
- saagarjha 7y ago
  They were an early adopter and for a while the only other large company putting significant effort into it.

tannernelson 7y ago

While it's sad to see IBM go, Vapor and the Swift Server working group are alive and more active than ever https://github.com/vapor/vapor/ https://github.com/vapor/vapor/ https://swift.org/server/ https://swift.org/server/ Amazon has also created a Swift web framework: https://github.com/amzn/smoke-framework https://github.com/amzn/smoke-framework

samcat116 7y ago
I’m excited for Vapor 4! Also love all the Vapor Red stuff.

thrower123 7y ago

Outside of iOS, is there really any traction for Swift development? It certainly feels like it is settling into an also-ran position. And really, mobile apps are turning out to be a dead-end, and people don't seem to be actually investing in native clients anymore, they just slap their website in a browser control.

wwright 7y ago
As an Apple fan and a programming language nerd, I have basically no interest in ever using the language. I spend a lot of time in C++, Haskell, Rust, and Kubernetes, but Swift just feels pointlessly complicated to me. (C++ I think is also pointlessly complicated, but the rest at least have a point ;-)
- zepto 7y ago
  Swift is no more complicated than Haskell or Rust.
  - verttii 7y ago
    But Swift has had a more specific target platform, where it wouldn't make sense to produce excessively high level generic abstractions. Whereas a language like Haskell is happy to try some absurdly abstract concepts in the interest of promoting computer science.
  - Tainnor 7y ago
    If you don't use complicated compiler extensions (which, to be fair, many people do), then Haskell's complexity is more compositional. There are not a lot of fundamental concepts you need to understand; it's just their combination that creates the complexity (such as typeclasses like Monad). Swift's complexity feels much less compositional. There are still a lot of situations where I won't really know how certain features interact (especially when it comes to generics, associated types, etc.). Also, the documentation on some edge-cases is basically non-existant.
  - wwright 7y ago

jswny 7y ago

Does anyone know why IBM initially decided to throw some weight behind Swift?

amdelamar 7y ago
Could be from their partnership that started 2014. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2014/07/15Apple-and-IBM-Forge-Global-Partnership-to-Transform-Enterprise-Mobility/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2014/07/15Apple-and-IBM-Forge...

jrs95 7y ago

Apple really ought to invest more in server side Swift directly themselves. I feel like it has a lot of potential, and what the community has done with limited resources is impressive, but it's not really going to be able to gain substantial traction without a lot more weight behind it imo

tannernelson 7y ago
These things take time. A lot of people at Apple are heavily invested in Swift on the server, including the Swift core team: https://swift.org/server/ https://swift.org/server/ Swift itself still needs time to mature, too. Things like the memory model, async/await, generics, etc. The future is bright, it will just require some patience to get there.
- verttii 7y ago
  There seems to be very little promotional stuff about the runtime for server-side. What's the story with that for Swift? I don't think many people are going to start learning Swift just to build servers with it unless the platform/runtime provides something special. Otherwise it'll stay isolated just to the current iOS devs.

ogre_codes 7y ago

Swift on the server is very new and has very small market share. At one time there were 3+ Swift frameworks competing for mindspace against piles of well established frameworks in other languages. That one framework is falling out of the mix isn't a big surprise.

The_rationalist 7y ago

What are the pros and cons of swift vs Kotlin for the server?

favorited 7y ago
They're very different languages under the hood. Kotlin's biggest strength is also it biggest weakness relative to Swift– it's all built on the JVM. It gets great integration with the mature Java ecosystem, but it has Java's downsides as well. On the server, the lack of JIT warmup & a smaller overall heap size could be differentiators for Swift, depending on the context.

mythz 7y ago

Pretty clear signal that there's low appetite for full stack development in Swift. What are other promising future "end-to-end" (i.e. Web / Server / Mobile) development platforms are there? IMO these are the main contenders: - JS / node.js / React Native (Android/iOS) (+ other transpile 2 JS langs, e.g. TypeScript, Clojure, Scala, OCaml, etc) - Kotlin to JavaScript / JVM / Android / Kotlin Native (iOS) - C# Blazor / ASP .NET Core / Xamarin (Android/iOS) - Dart JS / Dart VM / Flutter (Android/iOS) Rust/Go/C++ could get some mentions, but I don't think they have enough community or commercial backing to become a popular mainstream option.

stock_toaster 7y ago
For better or worse, I assume Rust and Go (and other future languages) will begin to start taking advantage of js VMs and js toolkits (frontend) via targeting (compilation) WASM at some point.
nicoburns 7y ago
People are actually already building stuff in Rust / <native code) / Rust (compiled to WASM running in a browser). The frontend frameworks in Rust are surprisingly good, and I wouldn't be too surprised if this becomes a mainstream option at some point. That said, I generally find there isn't all that much advantage to sharing a frontend and backend language.
- mythz 7y ago
  Yeah they're mentions because it's being done in small niches (there's also Ruby/Haxe + many other transpile to JS languages), I just think they'll always lag behind the other popular and well supported contenders listed. I could be wrong but that's my impression after having worked on all of them which all provide decent development development experiences and end results - though they vary in strength amongst the different categories.
  - mhd 7y ago
    So you list Dart as being well supported on the server side? Did I miss some killer app/framework recently?

actionowl 7y ago

FWIW I’d really like to see Swift available in more platforms. At the moment only MacOS and Ubuntu seem to be supported (*BSD and perhaps Windows would be very welcome)

saagarjha 7y ago
Windows support is coming along nicely.
favorited 7y ago
Windows is unofficially supported, it's just in the 2nd-tier "community" CI environment. There's definitely still a lot of work to go, though. https://ci-external.swift.org/job/oss-swift-windows-x86_64/ https://ci-external.swift.org/job/oss-swift-windows-x86_64/
- actionowl 7y ago
  I did not know this, good to hear!
tachoknight 7y ago
Swift is also available on Fedora/RedHat/Centos 8; simply type “dnf install swift-lang” * Disclaimer: I’m the packager for swift on those platforms.
- actionowl 7y ago
  Nice! That was NOT the case when I last tried it, and I prefer RHEL-based distros when not using BSD. Thanks!

ofrzeta 7y ago

It's not a big surprise. A language is not only the language but also the ecosystem such as standard libs. Now when you have a language like Swift where half of the standard lib is not available on the dominant server platform (Linux) not many people are going to use it. Which is kind of sad because I like(d) Swift. Too bad no one was willing to untie the language from the Apple frameworks but obviously there was no party with enough resources to re-implement all of the ecosystem in a cross-platform manner.

Tainnor 7y ago

I think this is a very bad sign. Not necessarily because of Kitura (as others have mentioned, Vapor is more popular and quite active), but because IBM was the only major company that was at least somewhat invested in improving the server-side Swift ecosystem. Clearly, apple can't be bothered to fix some of the more serious issues with Swift on Linux. Just look at the kinds of discussions that e.g. Ian Partridge has contributed to: https://forums.swift.org/u/ianpartridge/summary https://forums.swift.org/u/ianpartridge/summary It includes substantial work on Docker images, logging, crash debugging, etc. Maybe google will become a bit more invested in the Swift on Linux side of things, but so far I haven't really seen them invest in the ecosystem (besides pushing differentiable programming, which is cool, but it's mostly satisfying a niche requirement).