2 ms·

Swift is next to useless on any platform other than Apple's.

by heavyset_go 3y ago

wahnfrieden 3y ago
[flagged]
- Larrikin 3y ago
  Swift 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 ago
    I 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 ago
      We had a bunch of Kotlin on the server at Airbnb in 2018.
    - tadfisher 3y ago
      Nope, 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 ago
        It is almost meaningless, about 10% if at all.
    - winrid 3y ago
      DoorDash moved their python backend to kotlin afaik
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  It's my experience as someone who wants to use Swift on something other than macOS/iOS.
- cdcarter 3y ago
  About 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 ago
Swift 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.

Swift is next to useless on any platform other than Apple's.

wahnfrieden 3y ago

[flagged]

Larrikin 3y ago
Swift 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    We had a bunch of Kotlin on the server at Airbnb in 2018.
  - tadfisher 3y ago
    Nope, 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 ago
      It is almost meaningless, about 10% if at all.
  - winrid 3y ago
    DoorDash moved their python backend to kotlin afaik
heavyset_go 3y ago
It's my experience as someone who wants to use Swift on something other than macOS/iOS.
cdcarter 3y ago
About 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 ago

Swift 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.