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The fact that Swift is not being used in anything than apple's econsystem, tells you that is a mediocre language. Java, JDK 1.1. was released in 97. It was the

The fact that Swift is not being used in anything than apple's econsystem, tells you that is a mediocre language. Java, JDK 1.1. was released in 97. It was the first fully featured version of the language. Java was not initially meant for the web (but for midlets, and such), but by 2001 it took over all web services. Then mobile (with J2ME). It even forced MSFT to create its copycat, .NET. Python has survived and thrived in many places that people 'don't have to use it by force'. That's the hallmarks of good languages and people like using. Swift failed outside the iOS/MacOs ecosystem. it is a mediocre/overcomplicated language. It is like Scala, which introduced lots of concepts, but went overboard with them and made the language too complex to use.

andrewjl 5y ago
> Java, JDK 1.1. was released in 97. Things were very different 24 years ago, the language ecosystem was not as competitive as it is today. There are more people writing code today and a greater variety of use cases when it comes to web services. Python is even older than Java (1991). A language being developed today must pass a higher bar. For example Rust has nowhere near the same level of adoption as Java did back then, but it is by no means a mediocre/overcomplicated language for systems programmers. Same with Go for web services and many others. > It is like Scala, which introduced lots of concepts, but went overboard with them and made the language too complex to use. What concepts are you referring to here? I'm not deeply familiar with Scala.
dangus 5y ago
You could replace Swift with C# or .NET in your argument, but I'd guess you aren't about to say that C# is a mediocre language. Sure, .NET and C# are technically cross-platform, but in reality they're almost exclusively used by Windows-based developers. Especially in the case of .NET Core, it was only released as a cross-platform framework because Linux servers have been replacing Windows Servers in data centers ever since the Web 2.0 era. Microsoft knows that Windows Server is not the future of the company, Azure is. That's why they happily make tools like VSCode, PowerShell, and .NET Core for Mac and Linux. Swift is used in Apple's ecosystem because it was designed for Apple's ecosystem. That business decision has nothing to do with the merits or demerits of its language design.

andrewjl 5y ago

> Java, JDK 1.1. was released in 97. Things were very different 24 years ago, the language ecosystem was not as competitive as it is today. There are more people writing code today and a greater variety of use cases when it comes to web services. Python is even older than Java (1991). A language being developed today must pass a higher bar. For example Rust has nowhere near the same level of adoption as Java did back then, but it is by no means a mediocre/overcomplicated language for systems programmers. Same with Go for web services and many others. > It is like Scala, which introduced lots of concepts, but went overboard with them and made the language too complex to use. What concepts are you referring to here? I'm not deeply familiar with Scala.

dangus 5y ago

You could replace Swift with C# or .NET in your argument, but I'd guess you aren't about to say that C# is a mediocre language. Sure, .NET and C# are technically cross-platform, but in reality they're almost exclusively used by Windows-based developers. Especially in the case of .NET Core, it was only released as a cross-platform framework because Linux servers have been replacing Windows Servers in data centers ever since the Web 2.0 era. Microsoft knows that Windows Server is not the future of the company, Azure is. That's why they happily make tools like VSCode, PowerShell, and .NET Core for Mac and Linux. Swift is used in Apple's ecosystem because it was designed for Apple's ecosystem. That business decision has nothing to do with the merits or demerits of its language design.