31–40 of 58 posts
I wish I could use the Swift compiler from the command line instead of having to download a 10GB XCode monster over my shitty 14kb modem that will take a couple of years. Is there a swifter option?
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I'm not sure that this is completely the same, but when node.js was introduced it provided a server-side programming language that a ton of web developers were familiar with. Swift is doing something similar now that it's open source there is a huge community of iOS (and to a smaller extent Mac) developers who are excited that they can code on other platforms (or will be able to in the near future) using a language t…
Honest question: how common are non-GUI Objective-C apps? So far as I know, Objective-C has been available outside of Cocoa for a long time, but you never hear of people using it for non-Mac/iOS apps. Is Swift different in this regard? Is more of the standard library open in Swift vs. in Obj-C? Any reason to expect it's non-Apple uptake will be better than Obj-C?
Swift, on the other hand, will now have full Apple support on Linux, and is a much nicer, and potentially more useful language. I think that with some effort on the community's part, it could become a serious contender for server side development.
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Yeah, it's looks good on your GitHub profile to be a 'contributor' to Swift.
This brings up an interesting problem to solve: How to tell if something is a "real" contributor rather than someone who sends the occasional spelling fix. I imagine recruiters would be interested in some way to easily tell this.
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Honest question: how common are non-GUI Objective-C apps? So far as I know, Objective-C has been available outside of Cocoa for a long time, but you never hear of people using it for non-Mac/iOS apps. Is Swift different in this regard? Is more of the standard library open in Swift vs. in Obj-C? Any reason to expect it's non-Apple uptake will be better than Obj-C?
Objective C was poorly supported outside of the Apple ecosystem. Plus Objective C as a language hasn't been all that preferable to most developers. There was basically no reason to use Objective C at all outside of iOS and Mac development. Swift, on the other hand, will now have full Apple support on Linux, and is a much nicer, and potentially more useful language. I think that with some effort on the community's par…
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No, originally Apple just provided huge patch sets. Here is some history from 2005, a few months before WebKit moved to a public CVS repo: https://blogs.kde.org/2005/05/13/webcore-khtml-firefox-know-...
Good example! And yes, KHTML's license requires Apple to release the source code for their changes, but it doesn't require them to do so in anything like a nice fashion. You can comply with the (L)GPL with tarballs and silence-implying-raised-middle-fingers rather than public repositories and bug trackers.
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No, originally Apple just provided huge patch sets. Here is some history from 2005, a few months before WebKit moved to a public CVS repo: https://blogs.kde.org/2005/05/13/webcore-khtml-firefox-know-...
Good example! And yes, KHTML's license requires Apple to release the source code for their changes, but it doesn't require them to do so in anything like a nice fashion. You can comply with the (L)GPL with tarballs and silence-implying-raised-middle-fingers rather than public repositories and bug trackers.
See for example: http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/os-x-1011/
Excellent summary. I'm really happy that Apple open-sourced Swift in this way. However, most of the ~400 pull requests are fixes for single typos. I hope that managing the GitHub issues won't become too much of a burden for the main developers (those with write access to the repository).
Although I've seen that a lot of the basic Swift types are written in Swift, so that would be an area to improve too - that is, if anyone can spot one.
Is there a task list for the project? I don't see an 'issues' page.
It seems to be the same effect as people getting Macbooks because... they have an Apple logo on them. Technically, either Rust, Python, or Go is superior to Swift in every usecase it has. It doesn't fill a niche, its just Apple would rather reinvent the book than use an alternative on iOS, and they wanted clean compatibility with their other NIH language Obj-C. Its a nice compromise language for applications, but it…
> Technically, either Rust, Python, or Go is superior to Swift in every usecase it has. How so, exactly? The only one on that list I'd say maybe to is Rust.
With swift, designers chose not to choose. Which means you'll resort to using libraries ( basic threads with gcd or C libraries such as libmill, or libuv), which means future incompatibilities between codebases that chose different models.
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Yeah, it's looks good on your GitHub profile to be a 'contributor' to Swift.
This brings up an interesting problem to solve: How to tell if something is a "real" contributor rather than someone who sends the occasional spelling fix. I imagine recruiters would be interested in some way to easily tell this.
Excellent summary. I'm really happy that Apple open-sourced Swift in this way. However, most of the ~400 pull requests are fixes for single typos. I hope that managing the GitHub issues won't become too much of a burden for the main developers (those with write access to the repository).