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Swift seems like a nice lang, but I'm surprised that proprietary, single platform language is getting so much traction on HN. Is it because ObjectiveC is as sh

Swift seems like a nice lang, but I'm surprised that proprietary, single platform language is getting so much traction on HN. Is it because ObjectiveC is as shitty as it seems at first sight (for C like langs dev) ?

rimantas 12y ago
Objective-C is far from being shitty. Your comment, on the other hand, is.
- tkubacki 12y ago
  You are overreacting. I'm not saying it's shitty - but it SEEMS to be at least for most Java/C# devs (I know) AT FIRST SIGHT. My hypothesis was: Objective-C is "not nice" (sorry, I'm not familiar with HN political correctness) therefore Swift feels like a true relief for iOS devs and thus this much traction.
  - asveikau 12y ago
    It seems these days there are a lot of Java and C# focused people who are unfamiliar with what came earlier. They have a hard time making these sorts of comparisons. To me the comparison that makes more sense is going from C to objc. Or alternatively, comparing objc and C++ (especially C++ as practiced in the 1990s, not the RAII or template patterns that emerged later). Say you're looking at the landscape as it existed a while back, and you've decided to make language changes to C in order to add objects. On the one hand you have C++ as it existed then: a language that can't seem to figure itself out, that has a very complex syntax and lots of troubling situations you can walk into. Then along comes objc. In contrast to C++, the language delta from C is tiny and easy to keep in your head. Especially before Apple started doing all this compiler-fu of recent years, it felt like just a few keywords bolted on, and most of the important additions seemed to be in the runtime library. When I first saw objc it kind of clicked for me as the anti-C++, in a way that is truer to C and doesn't add a lot of complexity. At the time that seemed refreshing, though I think I see more good in C++ now that RAII and templates are more of a thing. (If only there existed a set of 2 people who could agree on what C++ features to use.)
    - hetman 12y ago
      Comparing one 80's language to another 80's language hardly demonstrates how great it is in 2014 ;)
  - gdubs 12y ago
    Objective-C is a great language; at least a lot of us who have been developing in it for years think so. We're excited about Swift because although ObjC has modernized a great deal, there are limitations to how far it can be pushed. Swift's clean block syntax is a good example here. Objective-C, if you're not turned off by the syntax, can be a joy to program in.
    - hetman 12y ago
      It doesn't even have namespaces. ARC basically made "struct" obsolete (goodbye easy literal data instatiatons), and it doesn't have a lot of the things programmers have come to expect even in compiled languages these days. Now don't get me wrong, for a 30 year old language, it's pretty good, but calling it great may be a little over stated. I don't mind the syntax, but I don't think it's the nicest language out there feature wise.
dirtyaura 12y ago
iOS is arguably one of the three top consumer software platforms (Web, Android, iOS) and a lot of people reading HN are developing for it. Personally, as a programmer, I would find Swift articles interesting and educating, even if I wasn't developing for iOS, as Swift has adopted a lot of concepts from modern statically typed languages.
oscargrouch 12y ago
You can expect a reasonable behaviour on HN unless it has something to do with Apple..
stephen_g 12y ago
I would be surprised if Apple did not BSD license the source code for Swift by the end of the year, given that they have been almost single-handedly sponsoring the framework (and employing the main developers) it's built on, LLVM, for years now - keeping it open source when there's no license requirement for them to do so.

rimantas 12y ago

Objective-C is far from being shitty. Your comment, on the other hand, is.

tkubacki 12y ago
You are overreacting. I'm not saying it's shitty - but it SEEMS to be at least for most Java/C# devs (I know) AT FIRST SIGHT. My hypothesis was: Objective-C is "not nice" (sorry, I'm not familiar with HN political correctness) therefore Swift feels like a true relief for iOS devs and thus this much traction.
- asveikau 12y ago
  It seems these days there are a lot of Java and C# focused people who are unfamiliar with what came earlier. They have a hard time making these sorts of comparisons. To me the comparison that makes more sense is going from C to objc. Or alternatively, comparing objc and C++ (especially C++ as practiced in the 1990s, not the RAII or template patterns that emerged later). Say you're looking at the landscape as it existed a while back, and you've decided to make language changes to C in order to add objects. On the one hand you have C++ as it existed then: a language that can't seem to figure itself out, that has a very complex syntax and lots of troubling situations you can walk into. Then along comes objc. In contrast to C++, the language delta from C is tiny and easy to keep in your head. Especially before Apple started doing all this compiler-fu of recent years, it felt like just a few keywords bolted on, and most of the important additions seemed to be in the runtime library. When I first saw objc it kind of clicked for me as the anti-C++, in a way that is truer to C and doesn't add a lot of complexity. At the time that seemed refreshing, though I think I see more good in C++ now that RAII and templates are more of a thing. (If only there existed a set of 2 people who could agree on what C++ features to use.)
  - hetman 12y ago
    Comparing one 80's language to another 80's language hardly demonstrates how great it is in 2014 ;)
- gdubs 12y ago
  Objective-C is a great language; at least a lot of us who have been developing in it for years think so. We're excited about Swift because although ObjC has modernized a great deal, there are limitations to how far it can be pushed. Swift's clean block syntax is a good example here. Objective-C, if you're not turned off by the syntax, can be a joy to program in.
  - hetman 12y ago
    It doesn't even have namespaces. ARC basically made "struct" obsolete (goodbye easy literal data instatiatons), and it doesn't have a lot of the things programmers have come to expect even in compiled languages these days. Now don't get me wrong, for a 30 year old language, it's pretty good, but calling it great may be a little over stated. I don't mind the syntax, but I don't think it's the nicest language out there feature wise.

dirtyaura 12y ago

iOS is arguably one of the three top consumer software platforms (Web, Android, iOS) and a lot of people reading HN are developing for it. Personally, as a programmer, I would find Swift articles interesting and educating, even if I wasn't developing for iOS, as Swift has adopted a lot of concepts from modern statically typed languages.

oscargrouch 12y ago

You can expect a reasonable behaviour on HN unless it has something to do with Apple..

stephen_g 12y ago

I would be surprised if Apple did not BSD license the source code for Swift by the end of the year, given that they have been almost single-handedly sponsoring the framework (and employing the main developers) it's built on, LLVM, for years now - keeping it open source when there's no license requirement for them to do so.