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I don't know why anyone would want to use Apple tools if they are not developing for Apple platforms. Apple barely maintains compatibility for their own platfor

I don't know why anyone would want to use Apple tools if they are not developing for Apple platforms. Apple barely maintains compatibility for their own platforms, using Swift on a non-Apple platform is setting yourself up for doubule pain.

frizlab 7mo ago
That was true for Swift 2, maybe a little for Swift 3, but it has not been true since a long time now…
- hu3 7mo ago
  If cross platform support took so long, it's a major red flag. Plus Swift is arguably too unnecessarily complex now. And there's Rust/Zig so why use Swift for low level?
  - myHNAccount123 7mo ago
    https://github.com/finagolfin/swift-android-sdk https://github.com/finagolfin/swift-android-sdk At least 6 years old.
  - hirvi74 7mo ago
    > Plus Swift is arguably too unnecessarily complex now. I would argue the allegations of complexity against Swift are greatly exaggerated. I find the language to be very elegant and expressive in syntax, high in readability, and fairly terse. Other than that, Swift feels near identical to every other OoP language I have used.
- ethin 7mo ago
  In a way it still is true. Swift works on Windows and Linux until it doesn't. It's taken until a couple years ago for other build systems to get swift support (which I suppose is the fault of said build system, but Swift taking so long to be cross-platform contributed to that), and even now it (still) doesn't quite work right. C interop is a mess requiring hacks to generate clang modules to actually get Swift to see them (and CMake for example provides no easy way of doing this, or last time I checked it didn't). Oh and Swift tends to take over the linker and compilation pipelines when you enable it, at least with CMake, because... Reasons? I honestly don't know why. It causes very weird errors when I integrated Swift code into my C++ project that were a pain to actually diagnose. I eventually got it working, but still, it wasn't simple or seamless.
myHNAccount123 7mo ago
> Apple barely maintains compatibility for their own platforms... You're commenting on a post about an update... that they apparently don't do? What?
- groundzeros2015 7mo ago
  Why are you interpreting this comment as "never receives updates"? It takes great effort to maintain API compatibility, some things aren't improved or are implicitly deprecated.
  - myHNAccount123 7mo ago
    2/10

frizlab 7mo ago

That was true for Swift 2, maybe a little for Swift 3, but it has not been true since a long time now…

hu3 7mo ago
If cross platform support took so long, it's a major red flag. Plus Swift is arguably too unnecessarily complex now. And there's Rust/Zig so why use Swift for low level?
- myHNAccount123 7mo ago
  https://github.com/finagolfin/swift-android-sdk https://github.com/finagolfin/swift-android-sdk At least 6 years old.
- hirvi74 7mo ago
  > Plus Swift is arguably too unnecessarily complex now. I would argue the allegations of complexity against Swift are greatly exaggerated. I find the language to be very elegant and expressive in syntax, high in readability, and fairly terse. Other than that, Swift feels near identical to every other OoP language I have used.
ethin 7mo ago
In a way it still is true. Swift works on Windows and Linux until it doesn't. It's taken until a couple years ago for other build systems to get swift support (which I suppose is the fault of said build system, but Swift taking so long to be cross-platform contributed to that), and even now it (still) doesn't quite work right. C interop is a mess requiring hacks to generate clang modules to actually get Swift to see them (and CMake for example provides no easy way of doing this, or last time I checked it didn't). Oh and Swift tends to take over the linker and compilation pipelines when you enable it, at least with CMake, because... Reasons? I honestly don't know why. It causes very weird errors when I integrated Swift code into my C++ project that were a pain to actually diagnose. I eventually got it working, but still, it wasn't simple or seamless.

myHNAccount123 7mo ago

> Apple barely maintains compatibility for their own platforms... You're commenting on a post about an update... that they apparently don't do? What?

groundzeros2015 7mo ago
Why are you interpreting this comment as "never receives updates"? It takes great effort to maintain API compatibility, some things aren't improved or are implicitly deprecated.
- myHNAccount123 7mo ago
  2/10