5 ms·

It's interesting how from one side Swift seems to be trying to be higher level (for example the actors) and from the other it seems to be trying to be lower lev

by Zababa 5y ago

It's interesting how from one side Swift seems to be trying to be higher level (for example the actors) and from the other it seems to be trying to be lower level too. It's like it's developped in a world where other languages don't really exist and adding more features to Swift is the only option to do something. Or developped by people that want to use it for everything, from low-level systems to high-level applications. I'm glad that this is happening in the open, lots of smart people are working on it and sharing their insights, design decisions and code.

AlexanderDhoore 5y ago
Are you saying this /s or as a joke? Because you are dead on. To developers on Apple platforms this is the God-given programming language and nothing else exists in the universe.
- Zababa 5y ago
  Neither of those, I'm serious. I think this approach has obvious flaws (see any discussion about what a "sane subset of C++" is), but complaining about it here while I don't even use the language would be a waste of everyone's time. Instead, I prefer to focus on the positive, which is that there is a lot to learn from those posts. I wonder if some day we will see a platform ship with an obvious system language and an obvious application language. Right now everyone seem to want to do everything at the same time, and I'm not sure if it's the best approach. It's also always very interesting to see how programming languages evolve. If I don't change industries, I still have at least 30 years to spend in this one. 30 years ago Java, Ruby and JavaScript didn't even exist, but something like ML was already 18 years old, and records, sum types and pattern matching are just landing in Java/C#. So there's a lot to learn by studying history, and what's happening right now is part of it. I've also followed Go's generics, OCaml multicore, Java's Loom, Valhalla and Amber, and each time it was intersting and insightful. Our industry is all about tradeoffs between change and stability, and those projects are an example of that.
yoz-y 5y ago
Pretty much. One of the stated goals of Swift is to be able to be used from writing operating systems up to writing shell scripts.
pjmlp 5y ago
> Or developped by people that want to use it for everything, from low-level systems to high-level applications. That has always been Swift's main goal it is even stated on both sites. > Swift is intended as a replacement for C-based languages (C, C++, and Objective-C). -- https://www.swift.org/about/ https://www.swift.org/about/ > Swift is a successor to both the C and Objective-C languages. It includes low-level primitives such as types, flow control, and operators. It also provides object-oriented features such as classes, protocols, and generics, giving Cocoa and Cocoa Touch developers the performance and power they demand. -- https://developer.apple.com/swift/ https://developer.apple.com/swift/ So no wonder why they are doing this.
chunkyguy 5y ago
I think a programming language should have a very clear goal of what problems it is trying to solve. These general purpose languages then start evolving into different direction with patchworks coming from different teams with a different and sometimes conflicting visions. Like what is currently happening to C++.

by Zababa 5y ago

AlexanderDhoore 5y ago

Are you saying this /s or as a joke? Because you are dead on. To developers on Apple platforms this is the God-given programming language and nothing else exists in the universe.

Zababa 5y ago
Neither of those, I'm serious. I think this approach has obvious flaws (see any discussion about what a "sane subset of C++" is), but complaining about it here while I don't even use the language would be a waste of everyone's time. Instead, I prefer to focus on the positive, which is that there is a lot to learn from those posts. I wonder if some day we will see a platform ship with an obvious system language and an obvious application language. Right now everyone seem to want to do everything at the same time, and I'm not sure if it's the best approach. It's also always very interesting to see how programming languages evolve. If I don't change industries, I still have at least 30 years to spend in this one. 30 years ago Java, Ruby and JavaScript didn't even exist, but something like ML was already 18 years old, and records, sum types and pattern matching are just landing in Java/C#. So there's a lot to learn by studying history, and what's happening right now is part of it. I've also followed Go's generics, OCaml multicore, Java's Loom, Valhalla and Amber, and each time it was intersting and insightful. Our industry is all about tradeoffs between change and stability, and those projects are an example of that.

yoz-y 5y ago

Pretty much. One of the stated goals of Swift is to be able to be used from writing operating systems up to writing shell scripts.

pjmlp 5y ago

> Or developped by people that want to use it for everything, from low-level systems to high-level applications. That has always been Swift's main goal it is even stated on both sites. > Swift is intended as a replacement for C-based languages (C, C++, and Objective-C). -- https://www.swift.org/about/ https://www.swift.org/about/ > Swift is a successor to both the C and Objective-C languages. It includes low-level primitives such as types, flow control, and operators. It also provides object-oriented features such as classes, protocols, and generics, giving Cocoa and Cocoa Touch developers the performance and power they demand. -- https://developer.apple.com/swift/ https://developer.apple.com/swift/ So no wonder why they are doing this.

chunkyguy 5y ago

I think a programming language should have a very clear goal of what problems it is trying to solve. These general purpose languages then start evolving into different direction with patchworks coming from different teams with a different and sometimes conflicting visions. Like what is currently happening to C++.