3 ms·

As someone that’s recently been working on integrating Rust into an iOS Swift app I do agree with a lot of this. I love Rust but the more I’ve used Swift the mo

As someone that’s recently been working on integrating Rust into an iOS Swift app I do agree with a lot of this. I love Rust but the more I’ve used Swift the more I find myself wishing I was just using Swift all the time. That said, the difference between the two has a lot less to do with the language itself than the world surrounding it. You can use Swift cross platform but it’s very obvious that Apple platforms are the primary target. Rust has a rich and varied package system, about the only assumption most packages make is that you’re using the Rust standard library. By comparison lot of Swift packages (which is a much smaller ecosystem anyway that’s slowly transitioning away from Cocapods, Carthage etc) will lean on OS APIs that won’t work if you compile for Linux or WASM[1]. I want Swift to be a more convenient Rust but it just isn’t there. e.g look at IBM abandoning Swift on the server not that long ago. [1] for example, this blog post: https://swiftrocks.com/weak-dictionary-values-in-swift https://swiftrocks.com/weak-dictionary-values-in-swift Discusses making a dictionary with weak values in Swift. It has a homegrown Swift version then discusses using NSMapTable… which isn’t available on Linux. But you wouldn’t know that reading the article because the assumption is that you’re running on an Apple platform.

369548684892826 2y ago
Swift is in its .NET Framework stage. I’m looking forward to Swift Core!
- afavour 2y ago
  I like that comparison! But it might require Apple’s perspective as a company to shift in the same way Microsoft’s did. We’ll see, I guess…
- lolinder 2y ago
  The difference is that Microsoft very intentionally decided it was going to make .NET cross-platform as a strategic play. Apple has recently shown a willingness to get out of the way of cross-platform Swift, but I haven't yet seen evidence that they're throwing any significant weight behind it. They have an even worse track record than Microsoft did of investing heavily in locking developers into their ecosystem, so I'll have to see quite a bit of evidence to believe they're actually serious about cross-platform Swift.
- pzo 2y ago
  It might be too late. IMHO Microsoft also did transition too late and these days .NET is less relevant today than it used to be - even many microsoft apps are build using React Native or Electron.
  - nicce 2y ago
    > even many microsoft apps are build using React Native or Electron. I doubt that .NET has much to do with it. There are just many more JavaScript developers who know how to make UIs.
    - consteval 2y ago
      That's because the web is cross platform, truly. It's not a separate issue - the prevalence of the web is exactly due to platforms like .NET being limited. If .NET (and others) were cross platform much earlier, I think many applications would be true apps instead of web apps right now.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    As someone mostly focused on Java and .NET ecosystems, for the last 20 years, the problem isn't the transition, rather the team is hindered by upper management goals. While they do their best to open source .NET and related SDK tooling, the whole IDE story has been a bit of a mess, rewriting VS4Mac only to kill it shortly after the rewrite reached 1.0, C# DevKit under the same license as VS, the stuff that will never leave Windows or VS to Mac/Linux, Xamarin.Forms rewrite, while not taking GNU/Linux into consideration, and using Catalyst for macOS MAUI backend, dotnet watch drama, some of the ASP.NET features seen as way to sell Azure stuff,.... If you look closer, you will notice that usually the React Native or Electron based applications are from business units that are mostly C++ focused, that never had great love for .NET in first place. While the team tries to cater to new generations with making .NET development a great experience, even with some constraints in cross-platform deployments, I think they would gain more by fixing the bad perception .NET still gets in UNIX shops, which those upper management decisions don't make any better, regardless of how great .NET happens to be.
lukeh 2y ago
Well, that article also presents a pure Swift (non-Foundation) solution, WeakRef.
- afavour 2y ago
  Yes, I mentioned that. There’s probably a better example but this is off the top of my head as something I experienced myself. My point is that the blog post suggests the Swift native version then discusses NSMapTable without ever calling out the fact that you can’t use the latter cross-platform. I find that endemic in the Swift community, there’s a base assumption you’re coding on an Apple platform (and often specifically on iOS!), it adds an additional barrier to getting things done.
- naman34 2y ago
  And that article is from 2020. A lot has changed since.
naman34 2y ago
I added a new section to the post with links and information to dispel this myth that Swift is only for Apple platforms.
jnrk 2y ago
> look at IBM abandoning Swift on the server not that long ago That was back in 2019..

369548684892826 2y ago

Swift is in its .NET Framework stage. I’m looking forward to Swift Core!

afavour 2y ago
I like that comparison! But it might require Apple’s perspective as a company to shift in the same way Microsoft’s did. We’ll see, I guess…
lolinder 2y ago
The difference is that Microsoft very intentionally decided it was going to make .NET cross-platform as a strategic play. Apple has recently shown a willingness to get out of the way of cross-platform Swift, but I haven't yet seen evidence that they're throwing any significant weight behind it. They have an even worse track record than Microsoft did of investing heavily in locking developers into their ecosystem, so I'll have to see quite a bit of evidence to believe they're actually serious about cross-platform Swift.
pzo 2y ago
It might be too late. IMHO Microsoft also did transition too late and these days .NET is less relevant today than it used to be - even many microsoft apps are build using React Native or Electron.
- nicce 2y ago
  > even many microsoft apps are build using React Native or Electron. I doubt that .NET has much to do with it. There are just many more JavaScript developers who know how to make UIs.
  - consteval 2y ago
    That's because the web is cross platform, truly. It's not a separate issue - the prevalence of the web is exactly due to platforms like .NET being limited. If .NET (and others) were cross platform much earlier, I think many applications would be true apps instead of web apps right now.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  As someone mostly focused on Java and .NET ecosystems, for the last 20 years, the problem isn't the transition, rather the team is hindered by upper management goals. While they do their best to open source .NET and related SDK tooling, the whole IDE story has been a bit of a mess, rewriting VS4Mac only to kill it shortly after the rewrite reached 1.0, C# DevKit under the same license as VS, the stuff that will never leave Windows or VS to Mac/Linux, Xamarin.Forms rewrite, while not taking GNU/Linux into consideration, and using Catalyst for macOS MAUI backend, dotnet watch drama, some of the ASP.NET features seen as way to sell Azure stuff,.... If you look closer, you will notice that usually the React Native or Electron based applications are from business units that are mostly C++ focused, that never had great love for .NET in first place. While the team tries to cater to new generations with making .NET development a great experience, even with some constraints in cross-platform deployments, I think they would gain more by fixing the bad perception .NET still gets in UNIX shops, which those upper management decisions don't make any better, regardless of how great .NET happens to be.

lukeh 2y ago

Well, that article also presents a pure Swift (non-Foundation) solution, WeakRef.

afavour 2y ago
Yes, I mentioned that. There’s probably a better example but this is off the top of my head as something I experienced myself. My point is that the blog post suggests the Swift native version then discusses NSMapTable without ever calling out the fact that you can’t use the latter cross-platform. I find that endemic in the Swift community, there’s a base assumption you’re coding on an Apple platform (and often specifically on iOS!), it adds an additional barrier to getting things done.
naman34 2y ago
And that article is from 2020. A lot has changed since.

naman34 2y ago

I added a new section to the post with links and information to dispel this myth that Swift is only for Apple platforms.

jnrk 2y ago

> look at IBM abandoning Swift on the server not that long ago That was back in 2019..