7 ms·

Show HN: 2048 in Swift

92 points by austinz 12y ago

talhof8 12y ago
I guess this whole "X in Go" trend is now being replaced with "X in Swift"
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I think the trend this joins is "2048 in Y", not "X in Go"...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- tvon 12y ago
  It is not a trend, it is just people comparing a new tool to known tools.
Zaheer 12y ago
There were article about how FlappyBird is the new HelloWorld these days. Most probably some-what humorous but it's great to see how many resources and projects have already been developed in Swift. Shameless Plug: Want to learn Swift? Check out [http://www.LearnSwift.tips http://www.LearnSwift.tips]
- AH4oFVbPT4f8 12y ago
  Normally I'd ignore the shameless plug but that's a nice set of tutorials you've put together there.
unfunco 12y ago
As an aside, it's interesting that GitHub as added support for Swift language detection so quickly, yet I frequently read stories (on HN too) about their passiveness to correct or add other (sometimes more) popular languages.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- nkvoll 12y ago
  This likely has a lot to do with how they do detection. Swift uses the .swift extension, which is pretty unique, so detection is as simple as checking for the file extension with a very low risk of a bad classification. Some of the older, more popular languages uses more common file-suffixes, which may be shared between multiple programming languages, which has a negative impact on classification accuracy.
  - GuiA 12y ago
    Yes. In support of this theory: Github does not syntax color Swift files yet (eg. https://github.com/austinzheng/swift-2048/blob/master/swift-2048/NumberTileGame.swift https://github.com/austinzheng/swift-2048/blob/master/swift-...)
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  GitHub never bother. People send pull requests to their Linguist repo. If you want a language supported, do that; you only need to edit a yaml file and add some code samples. I added Game Maker Language, for example.
callmeed 12y ago
Is it cool to post projects like this in GitHub? (give Apple's NDA/PLA for iOS Dev Center members). I ask because I have some things I'd like to post but am reluctant.
- williwu 12y ago
  They just changed it in the new developer agreement, that you probably agreed to if you logged into your developer portal. It's under "Information Deemed Apple Confidential". "Further, Apple agrees that You will not be bound by the foregoing confidentiality terms with regard to technical information about pre-release Apple Software and services disclosed by Apple at WWDC (Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference), except that You may not post screen shots, write public reviews or redistribute any pre-release Apple Software or services."
  - visarga 12y ago
    > You may not post screen shots, write public reviews or redistribute Well, count me out. I like to work free.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  AFAIK NDA's can't cover anything that's publicly available. Apple announced Swift at a publicly streamed press event and they have made a Swift language guide available publicly on iBooks. My guess is they want people using it so that if people do start to switch to it when iOS 8 comes out there will be help available on the usual places (Stack Overflow, forums etc.) and people can find bugs.
kin 12y ago
Kudos for crediting "Threes"! That game doesn't get enough credit amidst the popularity of 2048.
- saumotions 12y ago
  At least it got a design award https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/2014/Threes/ https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/2014/Threes/
k-mcgrady 12y ago
I was playing with it a bit this morning porting a helper XML parsing class[0] I have over to it and building a simple RSS Reader project. I'm one of those people that really likes objective-c but I was surprised that when I had to go back to working in objective-c this afternoon I started to realise how much time Swift would save me. I feel like at a glance it's harder to understand the code but it requires way fewer keystrokes and overtime will probably become much easier to understand at a glance. Overall I really like it. I'll have to write a lot more code in it first but I could see myself switching to this for all my iOS code when iOS 8 is released. [0] https://github.com/KieranMcGrady/KMXMLParser https://github.com/KieranMcGrady/KMXMLParser
klaussilveira 12y ago
You're putting the whole thing inside GameModel? Are you serious?
seanalltogether 12y ago
Can someone give a quick overview of whats going on with this code? I'm feeling a bit lost on how enums are being declared and used in swift. enum ActionToken { case NoAction(source: Int, value: Int) case Move(source: Int, value: Int) case SingleCombine(source: Int, value: Int) case DoubleCombine(source: Int, second: Int, value: Int) // Get the 'value', regardless of the specific type func getValue() -> Int { switch self { case let .NoAction(_, v): return v case let .Move(_, v): return v case let .SingleCombine(_, v): return v case let .DoubleCombine(_, _, v): return v } } // Get the 'source', regardless of the specific type func getSource() -> Int { switch self { case let .NoAction(s, _): return s case let .Move(s, _): return s case let .SingleCombine(s, _): return s case let .DoubleCombine(s, _, _): return s } } }
- TheCoreh 12y ago
  Swift's enums are like Rust's enums, so they're much more powerful than C's enums: In C an enum can assume one of multiple predefined values of type `int`. In Swift an enum can work like that too, but it can also assume values of types other than int. This is similar to the behavior of the unions in C, but more high level, with proper safety checks in place. In Swift enums can also have methods, so there are two methods to return fields from the values contained in the enum —regardless of the actual type being held at that time.
  - Glide 12y ago
    And the functions there are examples of pattern matching in Swift. To the GP. That code example is a very good example of just how different Swift code be from Objective-C.
  - seanalltogether 12y ago
    case let .DoubleCombine(s, _, _): return s Is the underscore a special character in this case to tell the compiler not to read in the value of those arguments? Or is it actually loading in "second" and then "value" into an argument named _?
olgagalchenko 12y ago
>> Still have no idea how to make things private, public, or protected. In Objective-C you could hide internal details away in the .m file. In Swift, everything is exposed by default. I think it just hasn't been released yet. It's part of the Known Issues section of Xcode 6 release notes[0]. [0] http://adcdownload.apple.com//wwdc_2014/xcode_6_beta_ie8g3n/xcode_6_beta_release_notes.pdf http://adcdownload.apple.com//wwdc_2014/xcode_6_beta_ie8g3n/...
- dzlobin 12y ago
  I asked a Swift engineer named Greg about this yesterday at a Swift lab at WWDC -- he said that it is forthcoming, but gave no estimates or timelines. Exception handling, however, doesn't seem to be on the roadmap.
  - joncooper 12y ago
    Count me in the "happy to not have exceptions" camp.
  - terhechte 12y ago
    I asked an engineer too, and he said exception handling was planned. So that's that :)
ndomin 12y ago
does anyone else fear there will be tons more duplicates on the app store of apps re-written in Swift? End users won't see a difference.
oscargrouch 12y ago
Funny how 2048 is now the new "hello world!" :)
austinz 12y ago
Creator here. Glad people like it! I do have plans for slightly less useless projects in the future, but I did have a couple of reasons for building this particular project: - I wanted to try out Swift and see how it felt in practice to build a reasonably-sized project in it - and to see if the Xcode Developer Preview was anywhere near up to the task. I also wanted to see how the Cocoa APIs were going to work with Swift. - I had an existing Objective-C implementation that I could work from. I wanted to see if Swift could make the implementation easier to read, more elegant, etc. While the original is hardly a thing of beauty, I thought it still might be useful to see how business logic to perform the same task might differ between the two languages. I hope people who take a look, fork the repo, download and play with the code will enjoy reading through it and maybe take it as a taste of how things might be done (or not done) in the future.

92 points by austinz 12y ago

talhof8 12y ago

I guess this whole "X in Go" trend is now being replaced with "X in Swift"

dllthomas 12y ago
I think the trend this joins is "2048 in Y", not "X in Go"...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
tvon 12y ago
It is not a trend, it is just people comparing a new tool to known tools.

Zaheer 12y ago

There were article about how FlappyBird is the new HelloWorld these days. Most probably some-what humorous but it's great to see how many resources and projects have already been developed in Swift. Shameless Plug: Want to learn Swift? Check out [http://www.LearnSwift.tips http://www.LearnSwift.tips]

AH4oFVbPT4f8 12y ago
Normally I'd ignore the shameless plug but that's a nice set of tutorials you've put together there.

unfunco 12y ago

As an aside, it's interesting that GitHub as added support for Swift language detection so quickly, yet I frequently read stories (on HN too) about their passiveness to correct or add other (sometimes more) popular languages.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nkvoll 12y ago
This likely has a lot to do with how they do detection. Swift uses the .swift extension, which is pretty unique, so detection is as simple as checking for the file extension with a very low risk of a bad classification. Some of the older, more popular languages uses more common file-suffixes, which may be shared between multiple programming languages, which has a negative impact on classification accuracy.
- GuiA 12y ago
  Yes. In support of this theory: Github does not syntax color Swift files yet (eg. https://github.com/austinzheng/swift-2048/blob/master/swift-2048/NumberTileGame.swift https://github.com/austinzheng/swift-2048/blob/master/swift-...)
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
GitHub never bother. People send pull requests to their Linguist repo. If you want a language supported, do that; you only need to edit a yaml file and add some code samples. I added Game Maker Language, for example.

callmeed 12y ago

Is it cool to post projects like this in GitHub? (give Apple's NDA/PLA for iOS Dev Center members). I ask because I have some things I'd like to post but am reluctant.

williwu 12y ago
They just changed it in the new developer agreement, that you probably agreed to if you logged into your developer portal. It's under "Information Deemed Apple Confidential". "Further, Apple agrees that You will not be bound by the foregoing confidentiality terms with regard to technical information about pre-release Apple Software and services disclosed by Apple at WWDC (Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference), except that You may not post screen shots, write public reviews or redistribute any pre-release Apple Software or services."
- visarga 12y ago
  > You may not post screen shots, write public reviews or redistribute Well, count me out. I like to work free.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
AFAIK NDA's can't cover anything that's publicly available. Apple announced Swift at a publicly streamed press event and they have made a Swift language guide available publicly on iBooks. My guess is they want people using it so that if people do start to switch to it when iOS 8 comes out there will be help available on the usual places (Stack Overflow, forums etc.) and people can find bugs.

kin 12y ago

Kudos for crediting "Threes"! That game doesn't get enough credit amidst the popularity of 2048.

saumotions 12y ago
At least it got a design award https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/2014/Threes/ https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/2014/Threes/

k-mcgrady 12y ago

I was playing with it a bit this morning porting a helper XML parsing class[0] I have over to it and building a simple RSS Reader project. I'm one of those people that really likes objective-c but I was surprised that when I had to go back to working in objective-c this afternoon I started to realise how much time Swift would save me. I feel like at a glance it's harder to understand the code but it requires way fewer keystrokes and overtime will probably become much easier to understand at a glance. Overall I really like it. I'll have to write a lot more code in it first but I could see myself switching to this for all my iOS code when iOS 8 is released. [0] https://github.com/KieranMcGrady/KMXMLParser https://github.com/KieranMcGrady/KMXMLParser

klaussilveira 12y ago

You're putting the whole thing inside GameModel? Are you serious?

seanalltogether 12y ago

Can someone give a quick overview of whats going on with this code? I'm feeling a bit lost on how enums are being declared and used in swift. enum ActionToken { case NoAction(source: Int, value: Int) case Move(source: Int, value: Int) case SingleCombine(source: Int, value: Int) case DoubleCombine(source: Int, second: Int, value: Int) // Get the 'value', regardless of the specific type func getValue() -> Int { switch self { case let .NoAction(_, v): return v case let .Move(_, v): return v case let .SingleCombine(_, v): return v case let .DoubleCombine(_, _, v): return v } } // Get the 'source', regardless of the specific type func getSource() -> Int { switch self { case let .NoAction(s, _): return s case let .Move(s, _): return s case let .SingleCombine(s, _): return s case let .DoubleCombine(s, _, _): return s } } }

TheCoreh 12y ago
Swift's enums are like Rust's enums, so they're much more powerful than C's enums: In C an enum can assume one of multiple predefined values of type `int`. In Swift an enum can work like that too, but it can also assume values of types other than int. This is similar to the behavior of the unions in C, but more high level, with proper safety checks in place. In Swift enums can also have methods, so there are two methods to return fields from the values contained in the enum —regardless of the actual type being held at that time.
- Glide 12y ago
  And the functions there are examples of pattern matching in Swift. To the GP. That code example is a very good example of just how different Swift code be from Objective-C.
- seanalltogether 12y ago
  case let .DoubleCombine(s, _, _): return s Is the underscore a special character in this case to tell the compiler not to read in the value of those arguments? Or is it actually loading in "second" and then "value" into an argument named _?

olgagalchenko 12y ago

>> Still have no idea how to make things private, public, or protected. In Objective-C you could hide internal details away in the .m file. In Swift, everything is exposed by default. I think it just hasn't been released yet. It's part of the Known Issues section of Xcode 6 release notes[0]. [0] http://adcdownload.apple.com//wwdc_2014/xcode_6_beta_ie8g3n/xcode_6_beta_release_notes.pdf http://adcdownload.apple.com//wwdc_2014/xcode_6_beta_ie8g3n/...

dzlobin 12y ago
I asked a Swift engineer named Greg about this yesterday at a Swift lab at WWDC -- he said that it is forthcoming, but gave no estimates or timelines. Exception handling, however, doesn't seem to be on the roadmap.
- joncooper 12y ago
  Count me in the "happy to not have exceptions" camp.
- terhechte 12y ago
  I asked an engineer too, and he said exception handling was planned. So that's that :)

ndomin 12y ago

does anyone else fear there will be tons more duplicates on the app store of apps re-written in Swift? End users won't see a difference.

oscargrouch 12y ago

Funny how 2048 is now the new "hello world!" :)

austinz 12y ago

Creator here. Glad people like it! I do have plans for slightly less useless projects in the future, but I did have a couple of reasons for building this particular project: - I wanted to try out Swift and see how it felt in practice to build a reasonably-sized project in it - and to see if the Xcode Developer Preview was anywhere near up to the task. I also wanted to see how the Cocoa APIs were going to work with Swift. - I had an existing Objective-C implementation that I could work from. I wanted to see if Swift could make the implementation easier to read, more elegant, etc. While the original is hardly a thing of beauty, I thought it still might be useful to see how business logic to perform the same task might differ between the two languages. I hope people who take a look, fork the repo, download and play with the code will enjoy reading through it and maybe take it as a taste of how things might be done (or not done) in the future.