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When you write code like shit, the language doesn't matter. What Uber did was write a monstrosity with too many engineers and too many features without consider

When you write code like shit, the language doesn't matter. What Uber did was write a monstrosity with too many engineers and too many features without considering that was beyond their ability to deliver reliably. The product decision making was also clearly deficient and didn't help. Rewriting is neither a panacea nor a problem if you completely understand what you started with and what you will wind up with and be brutally honest. Trying to combine a rewrite with major feature changes is extremely hard to pull off (I've done it a couple times with iOS apps, not fun, but ours came out well) and adding a new language at the same time is probably beyond any team's ability. A rewrite for good reason can be done, but not with 100's of engineers and major features changes, all done in a massive hurry; that's a recipe for disaster.

scoutt 6y ago
It can be quality code written by good engineers, but there are issues you won't see until you deal with big numbers. The problem here is that Swift seemed to be a cool language that it might work for a "Hello world" app. You won't notice any problem until the thing grows up to a certain point. For example, I work in embedded and I am proposed with a new "X brand" Chinese Modem to integrate in our devices. I don't recommend it but since it costs less I'm pushed to evaluate it. I am handed 3 samples and they all work fine, so management convinced themselves that Brand X from China is the way to go. Once in production the modems started to fail at a 10% rate (10 devices over 100 won't work). And that is a problem you only see only when manufacturing a certain quantity of devices. Now there are delays, an ongoing battle with the manufacturer of modems and a unhappy customer (that's why I didn't recommended it).
- coldcode 6y ago
  We started with Swift 2.X as well but it became Swift 3 before we shipped anything; Swift 5.X now is much more mature and we have no issues. Trying to do too much with a new language plus all the other things was asking for trouble.

scoutt 6y ago

It can be quality code written by good engineers, but there are issues you won't see until you deal with big numbers. The problem here is that Swift seemed to be a cool language that it might work for a "Hello world" app. You won't notice any problem until the thing grows up to a certain point. For example, I work in embedded and I am proposed with a new "X brand" Chinese Modem to integrate in our devices. I don't recommend it but since it costs less I'm pushed to evaluate it. I am handed 3 samples and they all work fine, so management convinced themselves that Brand X from China is the way to go. Once in production the modems started to fail at a 10% rate (10 devices over 100 won't work). And that is a problem you only see only when manufacturing a certain quantity of devices. Now there are delays, an ongoing battle with the manufacturer of modems and a unhappy customer (that's why I didn't recommended it).

coldcode 6y ago
We started with Swift 2.X as well but it became Swift 3 before we shipped anything; Swift 5.X now is much more mature and we have no issues. Trying to do too much with a new language plus all the other things was asking for trouble.