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Swift has all the things I want in a language - Strong Typing - Great Performance - Actor Model Concurrency [0] - Modern Ergonomics - Corporate Backing -

by bnchrch 8mo ago

Swift has all the things I want in a language - Strong Typing - Great Performance - Actor Model Concurrency [0] - Modern Ergonomics - Corporate Backing - Performance - Functional Style - LLMs perform well with it [1] - Usable across iOS, Android, Web, and Browsers [2][3] The only thing its missing is adoption outside of the iOS space. I'm not sure it will be able to make that leap, but the ingredients are there. If it does I'd be happy to make it my primary language. ---------------- [0] https://www.hackingwithswift.com/quick-start/concurrency/what-is-an-actor-and-why-does-swift-have-them https://www.hackingwithswift.com/quick-start/concurrency/wha... [1] https://github.com/Tencent-Hunyuan/AutoCodeBenchmark/blob/main/figures/exp_acb.png https://github.com/Tencent-Hunyuan/AutoCodeBenchmark/blob/ma... [2] https://www.swift.org/blog/nightly-swift-sdk-for-android/ https://www.swift.org/blog/nightly-swift-sdk-for-android/ [3] https://vapor.codes/ https://vapor.codes/

jnrk 8mo ago
I agree, but it's already been 15 years since it was released so I'm losing hope..
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
troupo 8mo ago
> - Modern Ergonomics What does this even mean? Modern Swift looks like a haphazard mishmash of conflicting features where every problem is solved by "just one more keyword bro". In 2024 it had 217 keywords: https://x.com/jacobtechtavern/status/1841251621004538183 https://x.com/jacobtechtavern/status/1841251621004538183 and that was reduced slightly, to 203, in 2025: https://x.com/jacobtechtavern/status/1962242782405267617 https://x.com/jacobtechtavern/status/1962242782405267617 According to Lattner they never even had the time to design anything due to time pressure from Apple [1]. So Swift ended up with a type system that the compiler can't even check and is impossible to fix. So the compiler routinely just gives up and complains on even the most trivial code. [1] https://youtu.be/ovYbgbrQ-v8?si=tAko6n88PmpWrzvO&t=1400 https://youtu.be/ovYbgbrQ-v8?si=tAko6n88PmpWrzvO&t=1400 --- start quote --- Swift has turned into a gigantic super complicated bag of special cases, special syntax, special stuff... We had a ton of users, it had a ton of iternal technical debt... the whole team was behind, and instead of fixing the core, what the team did is they started adding all these special cases. --- end quote ---
- cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
  It’s not necessary to use all or even most of those features, though, and so a nice balance of expressiveness and functionality is possible. I’ll take it over dying on weird hills in language design in pursuit of ideological purity or mountains of ceremonial code and unavoidably ugly syntax.
  - troupo 8mo ago
    > mountains of ceremonial code and unavoidably ugly syntax. you... just described Swift, really :) Also, all those features exist even if you don't use them all. Which makes the language complex, cumbersome, and makes its compiler slow, complex and brittle. A language shouldn't be a collection of one-off edge cases, and this has nothing to do with ideological purity
    - cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
      I dunno, with a handful of exceptions I'm still mostly writing Swift the same way I did 5+ years ago. Unless you're using SwiftUI, new features haven't changed a whole lot in real world use. Whatever the case, I don't enjoy writing languages more obsessed with theory or design purity (like Kotlin) as much.
    - allenu 8mo ago
      I agree the language itself has gotten more complex, but for day-to-day productivity in terms of actually using it to write code, I don't think it makes a difference. I've found writing Swift code very pleasant, but I've been doing it for ten years, so that helps I suppose. The biggest productivity impact for day-to-day use for me in the last few years has been the new concurrency model.
piyuv 8mo ago
You listed “corporate backing” as a good thing and “no adoption outside Apple ecosystem” as a pain point. Why would it get adopted outside Apple ecosystem if Apple decides what happens to it?
eviks 8mo ago
Xcode isn't modern ergonomics, and neither is slow compilation (which also doubles against great performance and doubled performance)
- frizlab 8mo ago
  Xcode is also definitely absolutely not required for using Swift.

by bnchrch 8mo ago

jnrk 8mo ago

I agree, but it's already been 15 years since it was released so I'm losing hope..

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

troupo 8mo ago

> - Modern Ergonomics What does this even mean? Modern Swift looks like a haphazard mishmash of conflicting features where every problem is solved by "just one more keyword bro". In 2024 it had 217 keywords: https://x.com/jacobtechtavern/status/1841251621004538183 https://x.com/jacobtechtavern/status/1841251621004538183 and that was reduced slightly, to 203, in 2025: https://x.com/jacobtechtavern/status/1962242782405267617 https://x.com/jacobtechtavern/status/1962242782405267617 According to Lattner they never even had the time to design anything due to time pressure from Apple [1]. So Swift ended up with a type system that the compiler can't even check and is impossible to fix. So the compiler routinely just gives up and complains on even the most trivial code. [1] https://youtu.be/ovYbgbrQ-v8?si=tAko6n88PmpWrzvO&t=1400 https://youtu.be/ovYbgbrQ-v8?si=tAko6n88PmpWrzvO&t=1400 --- start quote --- Swift has turned into a gigantic super complicated bag of special cases, special syntax, special stuff... We had a ton of users, it had a ton of iternal technical debt... the whole team was behind, and instead of fixing the core, what the team did is they started adding all these special cases. --- end quote ---

cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
It’s not necessary to use all or even most of those features, though, and so a nice balance of expressiveness and functionality is possible. I’ll take it over dying on weird hills in language design in pursuit of ideological purity or mountains of ceremonial code and unavoidably ugly syntax.
- troupo 8mo ago
  > mountains of ceremonial code and unavoidably ugly syntax. you... just described Swift, really :) Also, all those features exist even if you don't use them all. Which makes the language complex, cumbersome, and makes its compiler slow, complex and brittle. A language shouldn't be a collection of one-off edge cases, and this has nothing to do with ideological purity
  - cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
    I dunno, with a handful of exceptions I'm still mostly writing Swift the same way I did 5+ years ago. Unless you're using SwiftUI, new features haven't changed a whole lot in real world use. Whatever the case, I don't enjoy writing languages more obsessed with theory or design purity (like Kotlin) as much.
  - allenu 8mo ago
    I agree the language itself has gotten more complex, but for day-to-day productivity in terms of actually using it to write code, I don't think it makes a difference. I've found writing Swift code very pleasant, but I've been doing it for ten years, so that helps I suppose. The biggest productivity impact for day-to-day use for me in the last few years has been the new concurrency model.

piyuv 8mo ago

You listed “corporate backing” as a good thing and “no adoption outside Apple ecosystem” as a pain point. Why would it get adopted outside Apple ecosystem if Apple decides what happens to it?

eviks 8mo ago

Xcode isn't modern ergonomics, and neither is slow compilation (which also doubles against great performance and doubled performance)

frizlab 8mo ago
Xcode is also definitely absolutely not required for using Swift.