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Swift on its own is already much more usable than Obj-C is and will only become moreso with the Foundation rewrite. It has a way to go but it’s possible to writ
by jwells89 3y ago
Swift on its own is already much more usable than Obj-C is and will only become moreso with the Foundation rewrite. It has a way to go but it’s possible to write useful software with it without Cocoa/GNUStep (especially if one is willing to lean on C or C++ libraries via interop), which was never true of Obj-C.
- pjmlp 3y agoIt was definitely true for Objective-C with GNUStep, or during the time Microsoft had their porting framework into Windows Store (Windows Bridge for iOS).
- jwells89 3y agoThat extreme dependency on a supporting framework (Obj-C doesn’t even have its own allocator) was a massive weakness though, as has been proven by GNUStep’s stagnation and MS’ abandonment of WinObjC. Swift has no such issues. It’s weaker without AppKit/UIKit yes, but at least has most of the basics covered. The only real threat is Apple deciding they don’t want cross platform compatibility any more in which case Swift can simply be forked.
- pjmlp 3y agoNot even Apple is fully supportive of it outside their ecosystem, besides CLI tools and Linux based servers, as stated on Swift's open source website. Seeing how much engagement Microsoft is having with .NET outside Windows and still failing in many fronts in regards to adoption by non-Microsoft shops, versus the little Apple has invested, I doubt it will really be any different than Objective-C.