IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

Post by mikeash » Mon, Sep 26, 2016, 2:22 PM UTC

themihai wrote: post #101

pjmlp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Swift is intended as a replacement for C-based languages (C, C++, and Objective-C). " Taken from https://swift.org/about/ "Swift is a successor to both the C and Objective-C languages." Taken from https://developer.apple.com/swift/

Swift can't do realtime. It has automatic memory management. How do you replace C or C++ with Swift for that? What they mean is that Swift replaces Objective-C on user facing apps(on Apple devices) but I doubt you will see the critical parts of the OS (kernel, drivers, etc) written in Swift. It's almost like saying javascript will replace C/C++. I want a nice language like Swift (or Go) to replace C but there is none…

Post by mattnewton » Mon, Sep 26, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

optimuspaul wrote: post #66

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.

Post by nandhp » Mon, Sep 26, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #90

barkingcat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not about having someone to sue it's about attracting blame. Blame assignment isn't really about who made good decisions, or who worked hard, or any of that, it's a combination of how bad it went and who made uncommon choices: common choice + failure = external blame (who could have seen it coming?) uncommon choice + failure = it's your fault for doing it weird common choice + success = great job! uncommon choic…

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 26, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

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.

Post by Un1corn » Mon, Sep 26, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

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.