Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#11

Post by zyxley » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

JonathonW wrote: post #3

Shivetya wrote: post #2

I am looking for a new language to learn, preferably more PC style platform focused, would this be a good language to learn?

If you're writing iOS apps, Swift is the language to learn. If you're writing server-side code for Linux/OSX, probably not quite yet. The language is nice, but it's only been available as open-source for a day now... the ecosystem you'd need to be productive in Swift isn't there yet. (On the other hand, if you'd like to be involved in building that ecosystem, now's probably the time to jump in.)

At the moment, it seems like it would be really nifty to use in hobbyist or small data-crunching projects to get C-like performance [1] with a saner syntax, less memory management issues, etc.

I wouldn't want to use it for anything substantial, but if IBM's already hopping on the bandwagon it seems like a good language to learn for heavier use later on.

[1]: http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2014/12/swift-performance/

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#12

Post by AndrewGarner » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #2

I am looking for a new language to learn, preferably more PC style platform focused, would this be a good language to learn?

Look into F#.

It's open source. Works on Linux, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Windows, etc. It has a good ecosystem and tooling built around it already but you can also tap into the C# ecosystem, if necessary.

It compares really well to Swift: http://www.slideshare.net/ScottWlaschin/swift-vslanguagex but even without that comparison, it's worth a look on its own.

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#13

Post by praveenster » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 6:02 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #8

Shivetya wrote: post #2

I am looking for a new language to learn, preferably more PC style platform focused, would this be a good language to learn?

What do you want to do with the language?: Here are some choices I think are interesting as new languages: Elixir : interpreted / scalability / concurrency / fault tolerance/ friendly community Rust : compiled / close to C speed / memory safety / concurrency TypeScript : compiles to Javascript but with types / runs in the browser Elm : compiles to Javascrtipt / functional / runs in the browser

You can probably include Go alongside Rust.

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#14

Post by sosedoff » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 6:02 PM UTC

If you're looking for something similar for other programming languages too, check out https://bit.run/. It supports Ruby, JS, Go, Python, Rust, PHP and many more.

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#15

Post by melling » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

Swift is gaining momentum fast. It has a big advantage because it's arguably the best way to write iOS apps. It'll replace Objective C as a top 5 used language.

In fact, a quick check of Tiobe shows Objective C heading down fast with Swift about to pass it on its way up:

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#16

Post by fauigerzigerk » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 6:21 PM UTC

This seems to be down. I'm getting 500 errors or a blank/blue page. I hope this wasn't supposed to be a demonstration of IBMs scalability prowess.

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#17

Post by amasad » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 6:24 PM UTC

I'm also planning on adding support for Swift to https://repl.it once I figure out how to implement a proper REPL with it.

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#18

Post by what-no-tests » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 6:33 PM UTC

hmottestad wrote: post #6

It's on Bluemix!!! Here is my experience with Bluemix: 1. We needed to get bills to send to our accounting department. There is no way to get this out of Bluemix. We needed to contact 5 different people and send 2 different support tickets. 2. At one point we couldn't log into our accounts, the authentication server was down. 3. The docker container doesn't always get internet. Also it sure as hell is guaranteed to n…

Thank you for providing detail into the stench of your experience.

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#19

Post by krisdol » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #8

Shivetya wrote: post #2

I am looking for a new language to learn, preferably more PC style platform focused, would this be a good language to learn?

What do you want to do with the language?: Here are some choices I think are interesting as new languages: Elixir : interpreted / scalability / concurrency / fault tolerance/ friendly community Rust : compiled / close to C speed / memory safety / concurrency TypeScript : compiles to Javascript but with types / runs in the browser Elm : compiles to Javascrtipt / functional / runs in the browser

I'm not even remotely a front end guy but Elm looks so interesting. I really want to play with it

Re: Introducing the IBM Swift Sandbox

#20

Post by bitdiddle » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 7:03 PM UTC

hmottestad wrote: post #6

It's on Bluemix!!! Here is my experience with Bluemix: 1. We needed to get bills to send to our accounting department. There is no way to get this out of Bluemix. We needed to contact 5 different people and send 2 different support tickets. 2. At one point we couldn't log into our accounts, the authentication server was down. 3. The docker container doesn't always get internet. Also it sure as hell is guaranteed to n…

Buy some of the stock, you'll feel better :)