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IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

computerworld.com

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Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#61

Post by themihai »

melling wrote: post #13
themihai wrote: post #3

Which version (Swift 2, 3 or 4)?

Swift 3 is the version with large source change. It required a lot of refactoring. Fortunately, many of the fixes were handled automatically by Xcode. I'm keeping a list of changes: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/my-ios-10-and-swift-... Any breaking changes going forward should be much less. Of course, you might be in the camp that wants zero breaking changes, then Swift probably isn't for you.

Do you really think Swift 3 is ready for enterprise usage? They say the core lib is not ready yet for production usage[0]. It's not about how may breaking changes I'm willing to take but in the enterprise world there is little incentive to rewrite large code bases. Even in the start-up environment the more code you write the less excited you are about breaking changes. Also Xcode doesn't run on Linux or windows and last time I've checked MacOS was not the the OS of choice in the enterprise world so Xcode is not an option. Next claim I'm expecting is that Swift is ready for the InSight Mars lander mission.

[0] https://swift.org/core-libraries/

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#62

Post by supster »

hellofunk wrote: post #35
psuter wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean https://github.com/apple/swift ?

The post is about IBM's Swift implementation.

Swift, the language, is from Apple. IBM simply has built a bunch of tools for Swift and would like to sell consulting services around them.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#63

Post by iheartmemcache »

gaius wrote: post #40
pjmlp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, preferably on top of IBM Cloud. http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/bluemix/swift/

After the Helion debacle, I have my doubts about "enterprise" clouds.

I don't have any clients which will use any cloud solution other than half on-prem SAP and maybe Azure are the only cloud solutions my clients will come close to touching, so forgive my ignorance but which debacle is that? (Genuinely curious from ignorance, not being flippant.)

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#65

Post by 0xCMP »

supster wrote: post #52
stepanhruda wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non C++ interop yet

You're right, I believe it's on the road map

But good Objective-C interop for working with old app code and libraries (Which comes from the C support, but with all the special stuff done to talk to Obj-C done for you)

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#66

Post by optimuspaul »

valarauca1 wrote: post #44

When I recently interviewed at Apple I was told my position would primarily be coding in Java, but the team would be open to other languages as the project progressed and needs changed. I asked if they would consider Swift. Then was told that Swift wasn't production ready in their eyes. (I didn't get the job) I guess every team is different, but this attitude to dog fooding isn't great.

Swift 3 was just released, like 2 weeks ago. Unless you interviewed very recently then I don't see the problem with that statement. If they had said swift 2 wasn't production ready, then I'd be concerned.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#67

Post by themihai »

barkingcat wrote: post #50
themihai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering what makes swift ready for the enterprise ecosystem. It barely seems to meet the requirements of the "enthusiastic consumer" outside of Apple OS.

To be ready for the enterprise ecosystem basically means that you can sue someone if things go wrong, and you can buy support packages for enormous sums of money. IBM is saying that you can 1) buy bluemix swift from them, and 2) sue them if anything goes wrong - but since they have a great legal team, they probably got ironclad agreements ready to go.

I thought stability of the ecosystem (i.e. stable standard library) was also a "must" for adoption by the enterprise. Never thought that a language in flux with "hosting" support from IBM is enough. But now it seems the enterprise world is eager to try the coolest thing and rewrite/refactor it after the next release as long as someone will host/run it.

Now that you enlightened me I can see the stock markets, hospitals, banks and all enterprise consumers embracing Swift and eager to upgrade once Swift 4 is released.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#68

Post by toomanybeersies »

Dancing_Mad wrote: post #39
nnq wrote: post #20

So... what's the "elevator pitch" for Swift? It has anything interesting over Elixir or Go (well, go's feature is "lack of feature" but you know what I mean) or Scala or Kotlin? I know that iOS and MacOS desperately needed a modern language, and great for them that they have it now, but does the rest of the world need it?

It allows enterprises to use their current iOS and macOS developers to do Web Application and server side applications. For developers it gives them additional ecosystems to use their skills on without having to learn a new language from scratch.

I would suspect that most companies have more non-iOS developers than iOS developers.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#69

Post by josho »

valarauca1 wrote: post #59
omni wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this attitude to dog fooding isn't great. Apple isn't telling people to go use Swift on the server, IBM is. Apple is telling people to write iOS apps in Swift, which they are also doing themselves.

>Apple isn't telling people to go use Swift on the server, IBM is. I'm aware. This is the (humorous) point I'm attempting to make. IBM is adopting technologies faster then Apple. While Apple started it's life out as the Anti-IBM . Indeed it is still fulfilling this role. The (humorous) point being, their roles have in a way swapped.

Yes, it is interesting how the companies have evolved.

IBM lost the consumer space and is dominant in F100, while Apple won the consumer space and abandoned the enterprise.

With both IBM & Apple behind Swift the language is being positioned for success in both enterprise and consumer markets. It will be interesting to see how things evolve.

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