4 ms·

Apple has its own better Rust now Swift: - Servers - OS - Apps with a wonderful SwiftUI framework - C++ Interop - Ownership model - Crossplatform

johnthuss 4y ago
Since it is open source and supports Linux and Windows too we all have it, not just Apple.
- Daedren 4y ago
  SwiftUI is not open source and doesn't support other platforms.
  - Kukumber 4y ago
    SwiftUI is not Swift, it's a framework for iOS/macOS Swift is crossplatform, whether you like it or not
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Languages alone don't matter. Swift's ecosystem is on Apple's platforms, and it is ok, plenty of jobs there.
Arcanum-XIII 4y ago
Well, every time I heard about the SwiftUI it’s to complain about the hidden complexity and difficulty to debug it. Not so sure it’s a true plus! And it’s only valid on Mac/iOS
- jakey_bakey 4y ago
  SwiftUI was historically pretty dire to debug, but in the 3 years since release it's come on in leaps and bounds - Apple, for once, released something before it was production-ready and actually listened to feedback
- tarentel 4y ago
  SwiftUI is about 90% production ready if you're targeting the latest OS. The other 10% can be very nightmarish though if you run into any issues.
galangalalgol 4y ago
The c++ interop would be nice in rust. The main complaint I'd heard with swift was how slow it is, especially if you dont compile with -Ounchecked. So a lot slower than rust even with -Ounchecked, and with it, slower than gc languages in general ocaml haskell that sort of thing. Has that gotten better? If so, safety and performance with c++ interop would be nice.
nativecoinc 4y ago
Programming languages, even so-called general purpose ones, really need to have a general niche. Swift is for application programming while Rust is for systems programming. Which doesn’t mean that they can’t do things in the other niche. But it does mean that they will not be used to such a wide extent that they will be seen as "better" than the other language for that opposite niche. One illustrative facts is that Rust in practice cares about each individual allocation. Meanwhile Swift has the wonderful value-semantics collection implemented by way of copy-on-write (cow) atomically reference-counted pointers.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  From the point of view of Apple, Swift is also a systems programming language, it is even part of its official documentation.
- pixel_tracing 4y ago
  Swift is a systems langauge too
dmitriid 4y ago
Is it a better Rust? The whole language evolution looks like "let's just throw things at the wall with random syntax, maybe it will stick" and "if syntax doesn't work, let's do random one-off constructs, and see if those stick".
- bsaul 4y ago
  Definitely my feeling as well. One can clearly see how swift got inspired by rust and is trying to build a more ergonomic one (aka a « dumb » rust). However, the general direction for the language is clearly hard to understand. I have the feeling it kind of lost itself once chris lattner stopped being involved.
bsaul 4y ago
Swift isn’t crossplatform by any stretch. Some people may have succeeded in building reusable swift code across different platforms, but that was by going through a lots of hops, and is barely documented (i’m talking for example building a lib working on both ios and android, which requires creating your own toolchain). A recent post of the forum wanted to build a crossplatform working group, but as you can see in OP, it wasn’t met with a lot of enthusiasm by the core team. Obviously, as long as apple is the only major corp behind swift, it isn’t going anywhere outside apple platforms. The day rust reaches some kind of ergonomics acceptable to non-system programmers you can be sure swift will only be used for UIKit / Swift interfacing and that’s it.

johnthuss 4y ago

Since it is open source and supports Linux and Windows too we all have it, not just Apple.

Daedren 4y ago
SwiftUI is not open source and doesn't support other platforms.
- Kukumber 4y ago
  SwiftUI is not Swift, it's a framework for iOS/macOS Swift is crossplatform, whether you like it or not
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Languages alone don't matter. Swift's ecosystem is on Apple's platforms, and it is ok, plenty of jobs there.

Arcanum-XIII 4y ago

Well, every time I heard about the SwiftUI it’s to complain about the hidden complexity and difficulty to debug it. Not so sure it’s a true plus! And it’s only valid on Mac/iOS

jakey_bakey 4y ago
SwiftUI was historically pretty dire to debug, but in the 3 years since release it's come on in leaps and bounds - Apple, for once, released something before it was production-ready and actually listened to feedback
tarentel 4y ago
SwiftUI is about 90% production ready if you're targeting the latest OS. The other 10% can be very nightmarish though if you run into any issues.

galangalalgol 4y ago

The c++ interop would be nice in rust. The main complaint I'd heard with swift was how slow it is, especially if you dont compile with -Ounchecked. So a lot slower than rust even with -Ounchecked, and with it, slower than gc languages in general ocaml haskell that sort of thing. Has that gotten better? If so, safety and performance with c++ interop would be nice.

nativecoinc 4y ago

Programming languages, even so-called general purpose ones, really need to have a general niche. Swift is for application programming while Rust is for systems programming. Which doesn’t mean that they can’t do things in the other niche. But it does mean that they will not be used to such a wide extent that they will be seen as "better" than the other language for that opposite niche. One illustrative facts is that Rust in practice cares about each individual allocation. Meanwhile Swift has the wonderful value-semantics collection implemented by way of copy-on-write (cow) atomically reference-counted pointers.

pjmlp 4y ago
From the point of view of Apple, Swift is also a systems programming language, it is even part of its official documentation.
pixel_tracing 4y ago
Swift is a systems langauge too

dmitriid 4y ago

Is it a better Rust? The whole language evolution looks like "let's just throw things at the wall with random syntax, maybe it will stick" and "if syntax doesn't work, let's do random one-off constructs, and see if those stick".

bsaul 4y ago
Definitely my feeling as well. One can clearly see how swift got inspired by rust and is trying to build a more ergonomic one (aka a « dumb » rust). However, the general direction for the language is clearly hard to understand. I have the feeling it kind of lost itself once chris lattner stopped being involved.

bsaul 4y ago

Swift isn’t crossplatform by any stretch. Some people may have succeeded in building reusable swift code across different platforms, but that was by going through a lots of hops, and is barely documented (i’m talking for example building a lib working on both ios and android, which requires creating your own toolchain). A recent post of the forum wanted to build a crossplatform working group, but as you can see in OP, it wasn’t met with a lot of enthusiasm by the core team. Obviously, as long as apple is the only major corp behind swift, it isn’t going anywhere outside apple platforms. The day rust reaches some kind of ergonomics acceptable to non-system programmers you can be sure swift will only be used for UIKit / Swift interfacing and that’s it.