5 ms·

Well, and 95% of heroin users don't mind needles and constipation. It's trivially true that the people who end up using a product are mostly the people who are

by samhw 5y ago

Well, and 95% of heroin users don't mind needles and constipation. It's trivially true that the people who end up using a product are mostly the people who are content with its tradeoffs. That doesn't say much at all about whether those tradeoffs are ultimately optimal.

Grustaf 5y ago
I don't know about optimal, but I've been a Swift developer since day 1 and yet never heard anyone I know complain about Swift being to Apple centric. It's typically armchair philosophers online that have purity concerns, not practical developers.
- b3morales 5y ago
  I don't have a problem with it being Apple controlled. I have a problem with it being presented as an open project while simultaneously Apple completely controls its trajectory and maintains private forks of everything, which are where the developer tools are actually built from. If it was a closed process where neat stuff just dropped out of the sky each year, that would be fine. When features drop out of nowhere each year and then get laundered through ex post facto public "review", then I take issue. If it was a closed process then we would expect that only features coming from Apple would exist. In a truly open process there would be facilitation for contributions from people outside the organization. In the Swift project as it is currently run, those contributions have withered on the vine; the core team doesn't particularly welcome or support anything that didn't originate internally.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    This is a textbook example of what I meant by philosophers obsessed with purity. And it doesn't sound like you're actually following Swift Evolution. A) Most of what happens is done in public, only rarely do they hide stuff until the last minute, like result builders for SwiftUI. B) As far as I know, they have never claimed that it's going to be completely open and 100% community controlled. The core team is mostly Apple employees, that is not a secret.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - b3morales 5y ago
      > it doesn't sound like you're actually following Swift Evolution Nope, you're completely wrong about that.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        Then why would you say something like this? It obviously isn't true. > In the Swift project as it is currently run, those contributions have withered on the vine; the core team doesn't particularly welcome or support anything that didn't originate internally. It's also a very niche objection to complain that it's neither fully open nor completely closed. Most people are totally fine that the development is mostly open, with some new features kept hidden for business purposes. The vast majority of Swift users see it as a tool, a tool mostly to write Apple software, and they are more or less pragmatic. Almost all additions to Swift have been very positive for people that use it in their day job.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I also have yet to meet anyone writing Swift for any reason besides "Apple made it and it works on Apple things", so we may be at an impasse here.
- bsaul 5y ago
  Hi, nice meeting you. Now you know one. My current concern right now with swift is the impossibility to use any code on android in an officially supported way.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    But is that different from using Kotlin on iOS?
    - bsaul 5y ago
      kotlin has kotlin multiplatform. A project to run non-ui components on both platforms. It's been there for a few years, apple hasn't even started.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        You can run non-UI Swift on Android too if you want. I don't know who made that possible, but I also can't see why Apple would sponsor Android app development, seems completely counter to their interests.
        bsaul 5y ago
        you can in theory, but the binding with the jni world will be atrocious. You're also pretty much on your own with the library ecosystem. I agree that it's not apple's interest. But that's part if the problem : this language didn't start with the goal of being just an apple language.

by samhw 5y ago

Grustaf 5y ago

I don't know about optimal, but I've been a Swift developer since day 1 and yet never heard anyone I know complain about Swift being to Apple centric. It's typically armchair philosophers online that have purity concerns, not practical developers.

b3morales 5y ago
I don't have a problem with it being Apple controlled. I have a problem with it being presented as an open project while simultaneously Apple completely controls its trajectory and maintains private forks of everything, which are where the developer tools are actually built from. If it was a closed process where neat stuff just dropped out of the sky each year, that would be fine. When features drop out of nowhere each year and then get laundered through ex post facto public "review", then I take issue. If it was a closed process then we would expect that only features coming from Apple would exist. In a truly open process there would be facilitation for contributions from people outside the organization. In the Swift project as it is currently run, those contributions have withered on the vine; the core team doesn't particularly welcome or support anything that didn't originate internally.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  This is a textbook example of what I meant by philosophers obsessed with purity. And it doesn't sound like you're actually following Swift Evolution. A) Most of what happens is done in public, only rarely do they hide stuff until the last minute, like result builders for SwiftUI. B) As far as I know, they have never claimed that it's going to be completely open and 100% community controlled. The core team is mostly Apple employees, that is not a secret.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - b3morales 5y ago
    > it doesn't sound like you're actually following Swift Evolution Nope, you're completely wrong about that.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Then why would you say something like this? It obviously isn't true. > In the Swift project as it is currently run, those contributions have withered on the vine; the core team doesn't particularly welcome or support anything that didn't originate internally. It's also a very niche objection to complain that it's neither fully open nor completely closed. Most people are totally fine that the development is mostly open, with some new features kept hidden for business purposes. The vast majority of Swift users see it as a tool, a tool mostly to write Apple software, and they are more or less pragmatic. Almost all additions to Swift have been very positive for people that use it in their day job.
smoldesu 5y ago
I also have yet to meet anyone writing Swift for any reason besides "Apple made it and it works on Apple things", so we may be at an impasse here.
bsaul 5y ago
Hi, nice meeting you. Now you know one. My current concern right now with swift is the impossibility to use any code on android in an officially supported way.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  But is that different from using Kotlin on iOS?
  - bsaul 5y ago
    kotlin has kotlin multiplatform. A project to run non-ui components on both platforms. It's been there for a few years, apple hasn't even started.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      You can run non-UI Swift on Android too if you want. I don't know who made that possible, but I also can't see why Apple would sponsor Android app development, seems completely counter to their interests.
      - bsaul 5y ago
        you can in theory, but the binding with the jni world will be atrocious. You're also pretty much on your own with the library ecosystem. I agree that it's not apple's interest. But that's part if the problem : this language didn't start with the goal of being just an apple language.