4 ms·

Swift is really starting to show it's superiority to ObjC. I think we'll see a very significant inflection point in iOS development when Swift is open sourced

Swift is really starting to show it's superiority to ObjC. I think we'll see a very significant inflection point in iOS development when Swift is open sourced.

Tloewald 11y ago
Since this all relates to simd.h it seems like it's taking advantage of C APIs which are equally available to Obj-C coders. Swift seems great, but I wouldn't expect any huge technical advantages over Obj-C until Apple stops caring about Obj-C (which I suspect huge chunks of Cocoa are written in for starters).
- melling 11y ago
  People are already blogging mostly in Swift rather than Objective C, which was created in the mid 1980's. http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html Apple is doing a good job of updating ObjC but Swift already has the momentum. Apple has made it clear that they want Swift: http://ericasadun.com/2015/04/14/swift-in-case-you-didnt-think-that-swift-was-the-future/ http://ericasadun.com/2015/04/14/swift-in-case-you-didnt-thi... You can choose to ignore their subtle messages (e.g. use Autolayout, Size Classes) but at some point in the not too distant future, you'll likely regret not starting with Swift earlier.
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    Oh, no argument there -- and I wouldn't call the messages subtle, either. That said, Apple would be insane to orphan its Obj-C codebase (but it may start deprecating...) I was just pointing out that the original linked article isn't really about Swift, just an Apple framework that can be used with Swift.
    - xenadu02 11y ago
      Author here; that's not correct. Swift 2 introduced compiler support for the SIMD intrinsics that make this possible. It's listed directly as one of the new features of Swift 2.
      - notsony 11y ago
        Reminds me of the Accelerate framework and Altivec for Mac OS X from 10 years ago... http://www.unix.com/man-page/OSX/7/Altivec/ http://www.unix.com/man-page/OSX/7/Altivec/
      - Tloewald 11y ago
        Thanks for the correction. So -- going back to the original point -- in fact this was Swift catching up with Obj-C, so it does pertain to Swift but is not evidence of Swift getting ahead of Obj-C.
- rdsnsca 11y ago
  I guess you didn't pay attention to this years WWDC. Apple pushed Swift harder than they have ever pushed anything else. 7 session mentioned Swift in their title , only one did Obj-C and Swift was also mentioned in that sessions title. Almost all of the examples were in Swift. The message is clear: learn Swift or be left behind.
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    You obviously didn't pay attention to what I wrote. I paid great attention to both WWDCs. In fact I read the Swift book immediately after the announcement. However, the point I am making remains true: Obj-C isn't going away soon and the linked article is not about Swift pulling away from Obj-C (indeed, it's about Swift catching up to Obj-C -- see author's comment elsewhere in thread). In fact, here's a link to an article explaining how to bridge from Swift to Obj-C to make use of simd.h. https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/learning-swifttm-programming/9780133950410/ch11lev1sec5.html https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/learning-swif...
bsaul 11y ago
Although the language itself is clearly superior, Cocoa was written for objective c, so coding with this language still is a quite pleasant experience. I don't feel an urge to move to swift right now, but i'll certainly start learning it during the course of the year, and probably switch to it at the end of the year. The big change will occure once we start to see apple framework designed for swift, using swift specific patterns, and then adapted to objective-c for compatibility purpose. But for now, it's still a wrapper on top.

Swift is really starting to show it's superiority to ObjC. I think we'll see a very significant inflection point in iOS development when Swift is open sourced.

Tloewald 11y ago

Since this all relates to simd.h it seems like it's taking advantage of C APIs which are equally available to Obj-C coders. Swift seems great, but I wouldn't expect any huge technical advantages over Obj-C until Apple stops caring about Obj-C (which I suspect huge chunks of Cocoa are written in for starters).

melling 11y ago
People are already blogging mostly in Swift rather than Objective C, which was created in the mid 1980's. http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html http://www.h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html Apple is doing a good job of updating ObjC but Swift already has the momentum. Apple has made it clear that they want Swift: http://ericasadun.com/2015/04/14/swift-in-case-you-didnt-think-that-swift-was-the-future/ http://ericasadun.com/2015/04/14/swift-in-case-you-didnt-thi... You can choose to ignore their subtle messages (e.g. use Autolayout, Size Classes) but at some point in the not too distant future, you'll likely regret not starting with Swift earlier.
- Tloewald 11y ago
  Oh, no argument there -- and I wouldn't call the messages subtle, either. That said, Apple would be insane to orphan its Obj-C codebase (but it may start deprecating...) I was just pointing out that the original linked article isn't really about Swift, just an Apple framework that can be used with Swift.
  - xenadu02 11y ago
    Author here; that's not correct. Swift 2 introduced compiler support for the SIMD intrinsics that make this possible. It's listed directly as one of the new features of Swift 2.
    - notsony 11y ago
      Reminds me of the Accelerate framework and Altivec for Mac OS X from 10 years ago... http://www.unix.com/man-page/OSX/7/Altivec/ http://www.unix.com/man-page/OSX/7/Altivec/
    - Tloewald 11y ago
      Thanks for the correction. So -- going back to the original point -- in fact this was Swift catching up with Obj-C, so it does pertain to Swift but is not evidence of Swift getting ahead of Obj-C.
rdsnsca 11y ago
I guess you didn't pay attention to this years WWDC. Apple pushed Swift harder than they have ever pushed anything else. 7 session mentioned Swift in their title , only one did Obj-C and Swift was also mentioned in that sessions title. Almost all of the examples were in Swift. The message is clear: learn Swift or be left behind.
- Tloewald 11y ago
  You obviously didn't pay attention to what I wrote. I paid great attention to both WWDCs. In fact I read the Swift book immediately after the announcement. However, the point I am making remains true: Obj-C isn't going away soon and the linked article is not about Swift pulling away from Obj-C (indeed, it's about Swift catching up to Obj-C -- see author's comment elsewhere in thread). In fact, here's a link to an article explaining how to bridge from Swift to Obj-C to make use of simd.h. https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/learning-swifttm-programming/9780133950410/ch11lev1sec5.html https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/learning-swif...

bsaul 11y ago

Although the language itself is clearly superior, Cocoa was written for objective c, so coding with this language still is a quite pleasant experience. I don't feel an urge to move to swift right now, but i'll certainly start learning it during the course of the year, and probably switch to it at the end of the year. The big change will occure once we start to see apple framework designed for swift, using swift specific patterns, and then adapted to objective-c for compatibility purpose. But for now, it's still a wrapper on top.