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Not if you're using anything other than macOS or iOS derived systems.
by heavyset_go 3y ago
Not if you're using anything other than macOS or iOS derived systems.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoWhat? Huh? You forgot Windows, Linux, WASM in browser, WASI envs
- heavyset_go 3y agoSwift is next to useless on any platform other than Apple's.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago[flagged]
- Larrikin 3y agoSwift is most comparable to Kotlin in the current crop of languages and the Kotlin team is doing their best to get multiplatform, backend, KotlinJS, and native everywhere. Kotlin dominates Android obviously, but is growing quickly on the backend. The other implementations are still early but they continue to be improved. I don't see Swift anywhere outside of Apple and don't see why anyone would reach for it instead of Kotlin. It also doesn't help that JetBrains has an IDE that makes development in the language so nice people are willing to pay for it and Xcode easily is the worst user experience of any current product developed by Apple.
- lockhouse 3y agoI see people claim this frequently that Kotlin is used a lot on the backend, but there’s very little evidence that this is true. I absolutely will concede that Swift is in practice an Apple only language, but I feel Kotlin is essentially an Android only language in practice as well.
- jitl 3y agoWe had a bunch of Kotlin on the server at Airbnb in 2018.
- tadfisher 3y agoNope, Kotlin is plenty popular on backend, so much so it's mundane to see it in popular frameworks like Spring and Play. It helps that it's designed to coexist with Java.
- pjmlp 3y agoIt is almost meaningless, about 10% if at all.
- winrid 3y agoDoorDash moved their python backend to kotlin afaik
- heavyset_go 3y agoIt's my experience as someone who wants to use Swift on something other than macOS/iOS.
- cdcarter 3y agoAbout a year ago, Swift on linux was a bit of a minefield. Only parts of Foundation were implemented, and you couldn't use the Linux toolkit on a Mac to cross-compile or even just link against the Linux version of Foundation. The recentish move to reimplement Foundation in Swift natively is a big win, and I haven't tracked how close that project is.
- girvo 3y ago> and I haven't tracked how close that project is. It's a while away yet. Exciting prospect though!
- danpalmer 3y agoSwift on the server is really quite well supported now. Frameworks like Vapor work fully, there's a thriving ecosystem. And above all, Apple clearly wants this to work. Apple aren't deploying macOS servers for their backend services.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoThat would change very quickly if the Rust ecosystem dies.
- heavyset_go 3y agoSwift is not a C or C++ replacement, so there is no indication that would happen.
- lockhouse 3y agoNot for all cases, sure. It would be challenging to write an OS kernel or low level device firmware in Swift, but for a lot of other use cases it is absolutely a viable alternative to C and C++.
- MBCook 3y agoApple is doing exactly that. They’ve already shipped stuff written that way. I think the Secure Enclave code is now Swift. I’m pretty sure they have extra stuff on top at the moment to help them write ultra-strong/safe code that the released language doesn’t support directly yet. But they are moving in that direction. Just because most people use Swift as a language where they don’t have to worry about memory allocation and with the large standard library doesn’t mean that’s all it can do.
- pjmlp 3y agoIt surely is from Apple's point of view, it is even expliclity mentioned on its documentation. Apple doesn't care about what outsiders think, they own the platform.
- tcmart14 3y agoThat is sorta how I feel. Regardless how people feel about Swift. Having dabbled in Swift over the past couple of weeks, getting paid to sling C# and doing Rust in my open source work, Swift feels like a perfect mix between C# and Rust. You want C#, but some of the niceties of Rust. Or you want Rust with some of the niceties of objects on C#.