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Swift is replacing Objective-C (a systems programming language a dialect of C). So indeed it is a direct competitor to Rust as it also provides hardware abstrac

Swift is replacing Objective-C (a systems programming language a dialect of C). So indeed it is a direct competitor to Rust as it also provides hardware abstraction in a safe manner to replace C dialect. I will wait and watch when Rust will be used to control Apple or Android hardware as performant with similar safety guarantee like Swift or now Kotlin. It's also same as C++ used by Microsoft to provide underlying abstraction of hardware on Windows.

pkolaczk 7y ago
Kotlin and Swift fall short on memory management and both need runtime and GC. Currently Kotlin native is an order of magnitude slower than Rust, and Swift is also losing in benchmarks sometimes by 10x (although, not always - purely numeric Swift code is the same speed, because it is going through the same optimiser). As for hardware abstraction - not sure what is your point - Rust can use any C API.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  It doesn't matter if improvements are still required, Apple is doing Swift, and Google is doing Kotlin on their mobile OSes, not Rust.
  - pkolaczk 7y ago
    Swift and Kotlin are used for application programming there, not systems programming. Also, Google does Rust as well. And Microsoft is slowly switching some pieces to Rust as well. These are big companies with many teams and use many different tools. Don't know how iOS, but Android does offer native APIs, so Kotlin is not the only officially supported choice there. Actually for anything that needs performance, e.g. games, Kotlin is a nogo.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Swift is used for systems programming on Apple platforms, as already replied on another thread. Google already mentioned a couple of times at Android Fireside Q&A sessions that it is weighting Kotlin/Native adoption on Android. And even if not, Rust isn't taking C++ and Java place on Android, specially after Project Treble changes, where drivers can even now be written in Java. Google and Microsoft are indeed adopting Rust, with some products already in production, although they are also among the major ISO C++ contributors, so it remains to be seen how much Rust love from their security teams will spread into the OS development teams. For example, I still look forward to the day that Azure Sphere actually offers something else other than C, in spite of its security sales speech.

pkolaczk 7y ago

Kotlin and Swift fall short on memory management and both need runtime and GC. Currently Kotlin native is an order of magnitude slower than Rust, and Swift is also losing in benchmarks sometimes by 10x (although, not always - purely numeric Swift code is the same speed, because it is going through the same optimiser). As for hardware abstraction - not sure what is your point - Rust can use any C API.

pjmlp 7y ago
It doesn't matter if improvements are still required, Apple is doing Swift, and Google is doing Kotlin on their mobile OSes, not Rust.
- pkolaczk 7y ago
  Swift and Kotlin are used for application programming there, not systems programming. Also, Google does Rust as well. And Microsoft is slowly switching some pieces to Rust as well. These are big companies with many teams and use many different tools. Don't know how iOS, but Android does offer native APIs, so Kotlin is not the only officially supported choice there. Actually for anything that needs performance, e.g. games, Kotlin is a nogo.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Swift is used for systems programming on Apple platforms, as already replied on another thread. Google already mentioned a couple of times at Android Fireside Q&A sessions that it is weighting Kotlin/Native adoption on Android. And even if not, Rust isn't taking C++ and Java place on Android, specially after Project Treble changes, where drivers can even now be written in Java. Google and Microsoft are indeed adopting Rust, with some products already in production, although they are also among the major ISO C++ contributors, so it remains to be seen how much Rust love from their security teams will spread into the OS development teams. For example, I still look forward to the day that Azure Sphere actually offers something else other than C, in spite of its security sales speech.