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I am really curious what people's take on Hacker News is of Swift. It feels like I heard about it more five years ago. People seem to like Go, Rust is cool (I

I am really curious what people's take on Hacker News is of Swift. It feels like I heard about it more five years ago. People seem to like Go, Rust is cool (I learned that one), and Python, C#, Java seem here to stay. I mean I am asking as general purpose language, not just back end.

MBCook 1y ago
I really like it. It feels clean to me and easy to read, but has great async and other modern features. A bit like a compiled TypeScript without all the baggage that comes from JS’s existence. It has its issues in places, mostly the compiler, but I love getting to develop in it. I suspect you hear less about it because it’s no longer new and the open source community doesn’t seem to care about it that much, unlike Rust. It still seems to be viewed as “the iOS language” even though it can do more than that and is available on other platforms.
dwaite 1y ago
Rust and Swift share a lot of core concepts. Swift has a few extra bits for Objective-C compatibility (when running on Apple platforms), but otherwise the biggest differences come to design and ergonomics of the language itself. If I need complete control over memory for say a web server, or am writing code to run on an embedded device (e.g. without Linux), I'll use Rust - even if Swift technically has the features to meet my needs. Thats the reverse if I am creating mobile or desktop apps. I'd probably prefer using neither for web services like in this article, but would still probably pick Swift given a limited choice.
pjmlp 1y ago
Fine language for anyone on Apple's ecosystem. If one rather be OS agnostic, then not so much.
wiseowise 1y ago
There was really big excitement about Swift everywhere, but Apple decided not to capitalize on it and hype died off. Swift is pretty much Mac/iOS language and there are no indications that it is going to change anytime soon.
hu3 1y ago
As for HN, I see comments about swift becoming complex and bloated with many ways to do the same thing. Like C++ish.

MBCook 1y ago

I really like it. It feels clean to me and easy to read, but has great async and other modern features. A bit like a compiled TypeScript without all the baggage that comes from JS’s existence. It has its issues in places, mostly the compiler, but I love getting to develop in it. I suspect you hear less about it because it’s no longer new and the open source community doesn’t seem to care about it that much, unlike Rust. It still seems to be viewed as “the iOS language” even though it can do more than that and is available on other platforms.

dwaite 1y ago

Rust and Swift share a lot of core concepts. Swift has a few extra bits for Objective-C compatibility (when running on Apple platforms), but otherwise the biggest differences come to design and ergonomics of the language itself. If I need complete control over memory for say a web server, or am writing code to run on an embedded device (e.g. without Linux), I'll use Rust - even if Swift technically has the features to meet my needs. Thats the reverse if I am creating mobile or desktop apps. I'd probably prefer using neither for web services like in this article, but would still probably pick Swift given a limited choice.

pjmlp 1y ago

Fine language for anyone on Apple's ecosystem. If one rather be OS agnostic, then not so much.

wiseowise 1y ago

There was really big excitement about Swift everywhere, but Apple decided not to capitalize on it and hype died off. Swift is pretty much Mac/iOS language and there are no indications that it is going to change anytime soon.

hu3 1y ago

As for HN, I see comments about swift becoming complex and bloated with many ways to do the same thing. Like C++ish.