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Chris demonstrated Swift and Playgrounds at WWDC 2014: "I can build anything with Swift... from a social media application, all the way up to a high-performanc

by Arjuna 12y ago

Chris demonstrated Swift and Playgrounds at WWDC 2014: "I can build anything with Swift... from a social media application, all the way up to a high-performance, 3D game using Metal." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKMAV6owYh4#t=6436 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKMAV6owYh4#t=6436 He wrote this chapter (entitled LLVM) in the book, "The Architecture of Open Source Applications": http://aosabook.org/en/llvm.html http://aosabook.org/en/llvm.html * * * On the general topic, I wrote this [1] a little earlier in another thread; I'm just impressed with how Apple is becoming a gaming powerhouse. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7841744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7841744

diminish 12y ago
Did he mention anywhere Swift will be open sourced, the way LLVM has been? If not, why?
- lstamour 12y ago
  I find when Apple employees leave something important out, like licensing, it's because others haven't yet made the decision -- in other words, it's not final. I personally would have expected that if Apple were not making the code open source, they would mention its exclusivity and emphasize it as a training program for schools, etc. Realistically, it's just time -- like LLVM improvements or past work on Objective-C, expect everything up to the REPL as open source, but playgrounds and docs under proprietary license or completely closed would be my guess. If not now, some time in the future as .NET further open sources or if they want to encourage Swift as a JS competitor.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Or the decision has been made but it's not ready to be announced yet, for whatever reason. Apple is notoriously secretive. They hate saying anything ahead of time if they don't have to. They could have committed (internally) to open sourcing Swift when they started on it four years ago, but they still probably wouldn't say anything until they day it happens. If they thought they could get away with it, they'd have kept the very existence of Swift secret until the public release, but they need feedback from third-party developers at this point.
- jevinskie 12y ago
  Uncertain. I hope they do. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.compilers.clang.user/492 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.compilers.clang.user/492
- polutropos 12y ago
  According to Lattner himself, looks like the decision to open source has not been made yet. "@Ahti333 right now we are focused on finishing it up for the final release this fall." https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/473907124288770050 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/473907124288770050
- mnem 12y ago
  Does it really matter if a language is open source or not? Surely the most important thing is a versioned language specification?
  - ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
    Yes, it does matter. I have little to no interest in Swift if it's walled off into the Apple infrastructure. I would be very interested if it was opened up and available for Linux.
    - EpicEng 12y ago
      If there is a standard available then it doesn't matter so much. With the a spec anyone may write their own implementation. Of course, will they becomes the question then, and whether or not people will adopt it on non-Apple platforms.
      - jroesch 12y ago
        That is a nice view in theory, but doesn't mean much in reality, even if they release a spec who is going to be able to build an implementation to compare. It will end up like GNUStep. Even languages that are open like Python have trouble maintaining language compatibility across multiple versions. Written specs are also riddled with ambiguities and implicit assumptions which make the creation of a "perfect" clone very hard.
- dikei 12y ago
  Does it really matter ? While I think Swift is an amazing language, it would be much less useful outside the closed ecosystem of Apple. The same thing happened to C#, it never really took off outside Windows.
  - topbanana 12y ago
    You could share code with Android and Windows Phone targets.
  - bitpew 12y ago
    It's true that C# is not as prevalent on non-Microsoft platforms as it is on Windows but there are a handful of mid-size to big multiplatform projects using C#. e.g. - Xamarin (multiplatform mobile apps) - Unity3d (multiplatform games) - Monogame (multiplatform games) - Unreal Engine 4 (build system) I guess Swift could fill the same gaps. I would especially love to be able to develop multiplatform mobile apps with swift since switching between ObjC and Java all the time is quite taxing.
  - Shebanator 12y ago
    C# is extremely popular in the gaming industry.
    - EpicEng 12y ago
      A small sector perhaps, but it isn't that popular if you look at the entire industry, i.e., AAA games. No one is writing CoD or Witcher in C#.
      - Vetre 12y ago
        I respectfully disagree. You can't downplay the massive indie game libraries or even AA games out there. They're not breaking records, but they make a large amount of sales. There are several massive communities that use Monogame (even still use XNA) and Unity. It's huge in the indie community, and is basically how the XB1, PS4, and Vita expect you to make games for their systems. The Vita Tool Chain is mostly C#. Sure, no one is writing AAA games that require maximum graphical capabilities in C#, those teams use C++ exclusively (often with a scripting language on top). At that point that is really the only language AAA games use if they are made from scratch, otherwise they are using an engine already made in C++. Bastion, Magika, A.R.E.S., Dust, Fez, Rogue Legacy, Reus, and Terraria are just a few made in XNA/Mono. And looking at total sales amounts, some of those games definitely had revenues over a million dollars. That's not including unity games like: Shadowrun Returns, Rust, Wasteland 2, and Hearth Stone. These games made very good amounts of money, again, not 100% AAA, but still industry veterans.
vacri 12y ago
Which languages that can produce a high performance 3D game wouldn't be able to also produce a social media application?
- duaneb 12y ago
  C++ would be absolutely terrible for social media applications. There, the barrier isn't usually the speed but correctness and maintenance overhead.
  - TillE 12y ago
    Is Objective C really that much better? If you have decent APIs/libraries, C++ would be just fine.
    - gte910h 12y ago
      Objective C is head and shoulders better to program in than C++. It's still got the same C warts that C++ does in a lot of place, but it is far simpler and less leaky than C++. C++ is still faster and more cross platform, than objective-c --Have done both professionally
    - reubenmorais 12y ago
      No, but according to Chris Lattner, Swift is.
    - Gracana 12y ago
      As an example, OKCupid uses C++ and runs on a custom webserver. http://www.okcupid.com/about/technology http://www.okcupid.com/about/technology
      - 31reasons 12y ago
        I don't understand. Why would you make everything in-house especially for site like Ok-Cupid which is not exactly used to power rocket engines.
plg 12y ago
Is the balloons playground he demoed in the keynote available for download?

by Arjuna 12y ago

diminish 12y ago

Did he mention anywhere Swift will be open sourced, the way LLVM has been? If not, why?

lstamour 12y ago
I find when Apple employees leave something important out, like licensing, it's because others haven't yet made the decision -- in other words, it's not final. I personally would have expected that if Apple were not making the code open source, they would mention its exclusivity and emphasize it as a training program for schools, etc. Realistically, it's just time -- like LLVM improvements or past work on Objective-C, expect everything up to the REPL as open source, but playgrounds and docs under proprietary license or completely closed would be my guess. If not now, some time in the future as .NET further open sources or if they want to encourage Swift as a JS competitor.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Or the decision has been made but it's not ready to be announced yet, for whatever reason. Apple is notoriously secretive. They hate saying anything ahead of time if they don't have to. They could have committed (internally) to open sourcing Swift when they started on it four years ago, but they still probably wouldn't say anything until they day it happens. If they thought they could get away with it, they'd have kept the very existence of Swift secret until the public release, but they need feedback from third-party developers at this point.
jevinskie 12y ago
Uncertain. I hope they do. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.compilers.clang.user/492 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.compilers.clang.user/492
polutropos 12y ago
According to Lattner himself, looks like the decision to open source has not been made yet. "@Ahti333 right now we are focused on finishing it up for the final release this fall." https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/473907124288770050 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/473907124288770050
mnem 12y ago
Does it really matter if a language is open source or not? Surely the most important thing is a versioned language specification?
- ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
  Yes, it does matter. I have little to no interest in Swift if it's walled off into the Apple infrastructure. I would be very interested if it was opened up and available for Linux.
  - EpicEng 12y ago
    If there is a standard available then it doesn't matter so much. With the a spec anyone may write their own implementation. Of course, will they becomes the question then, and whether or not people will adopt it on non-Apple platforms.
    - jroesch 12y ago
      That is a nice view in theory, but doesn't mean much in reality, even if they release a spec who is going to be able to build an implementation to compare. It will end up like GNUStep. Even languages that are open like Python have trouble maintaining language compatibility across multiple versions. Written specs are also riddled with ambiguities and implicit assumptions which make the creation of a "perfect" clone very hard.
dikei 12y ago
Does it really matter ? While I think Swift is an amazing language, it would be much less useful outside the closed ecosystem of Apple. The same thing happened to C#, it never really took off outside Windows.
- topbanana 12y ago
  You could share code with Android and Windows Phone targets.
- bitpew 12y ago
  It's true that C# is not as prevalent on non-Microsoft platforms as it is on Windows but there are a handful of mid-size to big multiplatform projects using C#. e.g. - Xamarin (multiplatform mobile apps) - Unity3d (multiplatform games) - Monogame (multiplatform games) - Unreal Engine 4 (build system) I guess Swift could fill the same gaps. I would especially love to be able to develop multiplatform mobile apps with swift since switching between ObjC and Java all the time is quite taxing.
- Shebanator 12y ago
  C# is extremely popular in the gaming industry.
  - EpicEng 12y ago
    A small sector perhaps, but it isn't that popular if you look at the entire industry, i.e., AAA games. No one is writing CoD or Witcher in C#.
    - Vetre 12y ago
      I respectfully disagree. You can't downplay the massive indie game libraries or even AA games out there. They're not breaking records, but they make a large amount of sales. There are several massive communities that use Monogame (even still use XNA) and Unity. It's huge in the indie community, and is basically how the XB1, PS4, and Vita expect you to make games for their systems. The Vita Tool Chain is mostly C#. Sure, no one is writing AAA games that require maximum graphical capabilities in C#, those teams use C++ exclusively (often with a scripting language on top). At that point that is really the only language AAA games use if they are made from scratch, otherwise they are using an engine already made in C++. Bastion, Magika, A.R.E.S., Dust, Fez, Rogue Legacy, Reus, and Terraria are just a few made in XNA/Mono. And looking at total sales amounts, some of those games definitely had revenues over a million dollars. That's not including unity games like: Shadowrun Returns, Rust, Wasteland 2, and Hearth Stone. These games made very good amounts of money, again, not 100% AAA, but still industry veterans.

vacri 12y ago

Which languages that can produce a high performance 3D game wouldn't be able to also produce a social media application?

duaneb 12y ago
C++ would be absolutely terrible for social media applications. There, the barrier isn't usually the speed but correctness and maintenance overhead.
- TillE 12y ago
  Is Objective C really that much better? If you have decent APIs/libraries, C++ would be just fine.
  - gte910h 12y ago
    Objective C is head and shoulders better to program in than C++. It's still got the same C warts that C++ does in a lot of place, but it is far simpler and less leaky than C++. C++ is still faster and more cross platform, than objective-c --Have done both professionally
  - reubenmorais 12y ago
    No, but according to Chris Lattner, Swift is.
  - Gracana 12y ago
    As an example, OKCupid uses C++ and runs on a custom webserver. http://www.okcupid.com/about/technology http://www.okcupid.com/about/technology
    - 31reasons 12y ago
      I don't understand. Why would you make everything in-house especially for site like Ok-Cupid which is not exactly used to power rocket engines.

plg 12y ago

Is the balloons playground he demoed in the keynote available for download?