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The goal for Swift should (and seems) to be to gradually separate itself from XCode, which is holding it back from its ambitions. XCode has been compared to ma

by tux3 2y ago

The goal for Swift should (and seems) to be to gradually separate itself from XCode, which is holding it back from its ambitions. XCode has been compared to many things, but at 3.1 stars on the App store, one must find that it is still slightly overrated.

_mlbt 2y ago
Swift hasn’t required Xcode for several years now. It has robust command line tooling and a VSCode plugin. https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/getting-started-with-vscode-swift.html https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/getting-started...
- airstrike 2y ago
  Despite being terrible, the last time I checked, the experience in Xcode was somehow still meaningfully better than with the VSCode plugin
  - rescripting 2y ago
    What don’t you like about the VSCode plugin?
    - jitl 2y ago
      For me it just spins forever and never manages to do any LSP things
      - rescripting 2y ago
        If you haven’t tried recently I’d give it another go. A lot of work has gone in to the LSP this past year to stabilize it and improve performance.
      - myko 2y ago
        Pretty similar to the Xcode experience, then
        jitl 2y ago
        I find Xcode completion and especially doc lookup pretty good. It’s not as good as being able to jump straight into framework source code like with Android Studio but better than pretty much anything in VS Code in any language. That is, as long as there’re no type errors in my code… once I get a little too creative in SwiftUI all bets are off.
- tux3 2y ago
  I believe it still does at least for iOS, or it did last time I checked (for a Swift library I was writing).
  - jitl 2y ago
    Hence this announcement is great, since it seems to say they’re (going to?) support building GUI apps with SwiftPM and/or the newly open sourced build tool.
    - Zanfa 2y ago
      SwiftPM has always supported building GUI apps.
  - plorkyeran 2y ago
    Building Swift code for iOS without going through xcodebuild is sort of obnoxious but is possible. You do need to have a copy of Xcode installed regardless of programming language simply because the iOS SDKs aren't distributed separately.
tempodox 2y ago
I feel like Swift is being held hostage by Apple. I can't get get the next version of Swift, because it's being distributed with a higher version of Xcode that only runs on an OS version I don't want to install (yet), and even if I did, I'd first have to buy a new Mac for that. That trick seems to work with enough developers to make Apple ever more rich and powerful and even more arrogant (if that's possible at all), but it doesn't work with me. As much as I appreciate Swift, I will only ever use it on my terms, not on Apple's.
- diggan 2y ago
  > As much as I appreciate Swift, I will only ever use it on my terms, not on Apple's. Apple's ethos for a long time have been "On our terms only", for almost everything they've built. Why would they treat Swift any differently?
- declan_roberts 2y ago
  While i am sympathetic to you, you have to see that you represent a vanishing small use case for them.
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    Isn't that their complaint though? They don't want to participate in a language where they can only ever be a second class citizen.
- rescripting 2y ago
  This isn’t true, you can get the next version of Swift by downloading a pkg installer from https://www.swift.org/install/macos/ https://www.swift.org/install/macos/ You can get it bundled with Xcode as well if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.
  - tempodox 2y ago
    But you cannot run the product on an iDevice and a build for Mac Catalyst isn't even possible. “Bundled with Xcode” is very much necessary.
mrclears 2y ago
Using XCode is... unfortunate. Used it for only 10 minutes today and had a crash. Performance was very bad. (Here's a bad one: I accidentally copied a whole file into the Find and Replace box. Instant Freeze and 1 frame per minute response.)
frizlab 2y ago
It’s Xcode.

by tux3 2y ago

_mlbt 2y ago

Swift hasn’t required Xcode for several years now. It has robust command line tooling and a VSCode plugin. https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/getting-started-with-vscode-swift.html https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/getting-started...

airstrike 2y ago
Despite being terrible, the last time I checked, the experience in Xcode was somehow still meaningfully better than with the VSCode plugin
- rescripting 2y ago
  What don’t you like about the VSCode plugin?
  - jitl 2y ago
    For me it just spins forever and never manages to do any LSP things
    - rescripting 2y ago
      If you haven’t tried recently I’d give it another go. A lot of work has gone in to the LSP this past year to stabilize it and improve performance.
    - myko 2y ago
      Pretty similar to the Xcode experience, then
      - jitl 2y ago
        I find Xcode completion and especially doc lookup pretty good. It’s not as good as being able to jump straight into framework source code like with Android Studio but better than pretty much anything in VS Code in any language. That is, as long as there’re no type errors in my code… once I get a little too creative in SwiftUI all bets are off.
tux3 2y ago
I believe it still does at least for iOS, or it did last time I checked (for a Swift library I was writing).
- jitl 2y ago
  Hence this announcement is great, since it seems to say they’re (going to?) support building GUI apps with SwiftPM and/or the newly open sourced build tool.
  - Zanfa 2y ago
    SwiftPM has always supported building GUI apps.
- plorkyeran 2y ago
  Building Swift code for iOS without going through xcodebuild is sort of obnoxious but is possible. You do need to have a copy of Xcode installed regardless of programming language simply because the iOS SDKs aren't distributed separately.

tempodox 2y ago

I feel like Swift is being held hostage by Apple. I can't get get the next version of Swift, because it's being distributed with a higher version of Xcode that only runs on an OS version I don't want to install (yet), and even if I did, I'd first have to buy a new Mac for that. That trick seems to work with enough developers to make Apple ever more rich and powerful and even more arrogant (if that's possible at all), but it doesn't work with me. As much as I appreciate Swift, I will only ever use it on my terms, not on Apple's.

diggan 2y ago
> As much as I appreciate Swift, I will only ever use it on my terms, not on Apple's. Apple's ethos for a long time have been "On our terms only", for almost everything they've built. Why would they treat Swift any differently?
declan_roberts 2y ago
While i am sympathetic to you, you have to see that you represent a vanishing small use case for them.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  Isn't that their complaint though? They don't want to participate in a language where they can only ever be a second class citizen.
rescripting 2y ago
This isn’t true, you can get the next version of Swift by downloading a pkg installer from https://www.swift.org/install/macos/ https://www.swift.org/install/macos/ You can get it bundled with Xcode as well if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.
- tempodox 2y ago
  But you cannot run the product on an iDevice and a build for Mac Catalyst isn't even possible. “Bundled with Xcode” is very much necessary.

mrclears 2y ago

Using XCode is... unfortunate. Used it for only 10 minutes today and had a crash. Performance was very bad. (Here's a bad one: I accidentally copied a whole file into the Find and Replace box. Instant Freeze and 1 frame per minute response.)

frizlab 2y ago

It’s Xcode.