3 ms·

Swift doesn't really have to be "genuinely innovative" – it's a modern, ergonomic language which is pretty easy to pick up and and use, has decent performance a

Swift doesn't really have to be "genuinely innovative" – it's a modern, ergonomic language which is pretty easy to pick up and and use, has decent performance and a solid type system combined along with the familiarly of a C-like imperative language. It has pretty obvious usability and expressiveness benefits relative to Objective C while being designed for effective interoperability with a massive existing set of codebases. It actually feels quite a lot like Rust to write it. They're obviously designed for two different use-cases – Apple platform development versus safe systems programming, but they share a lot of similarities in other ways.

musicale 4y ago
Innovation isn't the same as invention. Apple didn't invent the MP3 player or the smartphone, but they certainly innovated with the iPod and the iPhone, which combined technologies into useful and accessible products. Swift might not change the industry, but it makes life easier for anyone who wants to develop on an Apple platform but finds Objective-C unwieldy. Also it provides a path for Apple to migrate its platforms to memory-safe languages, which can reduce bugs and security vulnerabilities.