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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

#131

Post by pjmlp »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #128
pjmlp wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scala and Kotlin both have projects for AOT compilation to native code. You can also get it today with any commercial JDK like Excelsior JET.

Yep, and as a result of this, the JDK ecosystem is healthy as ever. N.b to those who have only written web or phone apps for a living -- GC latency isn't 'bad' in most cases - unpredictable latency is what's bad. Having a deterministic upper-bound is what is important in the enterprise, on your aviation component regulating cabin pressure, on your SWIFT bank transfer. Also, see the top comment here: https://news.ycom…

One of the reasons I always argue for GC is that I used Native Oberon, and also collect papers related to Xerox PARC and DEC research.

Modern hardware would be a dream to any of those researchers doing systems programming in GC enabled languages.

I only consider the biggest flaws of Java not adopting AOT from the beginning and the lack of value types. Now the JDK ecosystem needs to wait until Java 10, probably around 2020 or later, to get them.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#132

Post by gaius »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #63
gaius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Oh, HP launched a cloud, then shut it down again.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/hp-shutting-down-hp-helion-pub...

The last thing you'd want is to do a big migration then find the rug pulled from under you.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#133

Post by themihai »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #95
themihai wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, hospital…

IBM's BlueBix et al was a direct result of the purchase of Rackspace, which was strategic buy to hedge against the growth market of Amazon and it's bazillion EC2-esque offerings. (Likely in response to seeing Amazon's success, almost strategically similar to why Azure and Google's App Service or whatever exist.) They're still making money hand over fist in maintenance keeping the mainframes up (your state's DMV won't…

Maybe you mean softlayer. As far as I know Rackspace was recently bought out by someone else. I understand IBM wants to be cool but it doesn't make sense to promote an immature technology as enterprise ready...

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#134

Post by pjmlp »

mdasen wrote: post #100
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 does have some interesting bits. 1. It doesn't have a GC. While the JVM's GC is decent, it can definitely cause latency spikes. 2. It has value types. Go has this, but Scala and Kotlin mean running on the JVM which means leaving memory locality behind. In fact, Swift allows you to select whether you want an object that contains pointers to things or a struct. Go gives you structs and Scala and Kotlin give you poin…

> While the JVM's GC is decent, it can definitely cause latency spikes.

Which one?

Java is like C and C++, there are plenty of JDKs to chose from, each it is own set of implementation behaviors, for the different types of customer pocket sizes.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#135

Post by mikeash »

pjmlp wrote: post #129
mikeash wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking only for myself, avoiding or breaking retain cycles is a noticeable problem in Swift code that simply isn't there in languages with a proper garbage collector. Among newer iOS programmers, it's a big point of confusion to figure out when a callback closure should use [weak self] versus capturing self strongly, for example. I've seen a lot of people struggle to understand, completely fail, and end up dogmatic…

It is much easier than in either C++ or Rust.

Don't C++ and Rust offer the same facilities? C++ has std::weak_ptr and Rust has std::rc::Weak.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#136

Post by melling »

themihai wrote: post #61
melling wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I haven't used Swift on the server yet, so I can't honestly say. I'll give it a try soon.

However, it's probably best for devs who are already using it for apps (code reuse, experience, etc). For other dev, I might try Elixir, for example, for web dev. It is gaining a lot of momentum. A critical mass in adoption means better support, quicker answers to questions, etc. We all can't pay IBM to worry about the details.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#137

Post by pjmlp »

mikeash wrote: post #135
pjmlp wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is much easier than in either C++ or Rust.

Don't C++ and Rust offer the same facilities? C++ has std::weak_ptr and Rust has std::rc::Weak.

Yes, but they are library calls without any help from the compiler.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#138

Post by pjmlp »

virtualwhys wrote: post #130
pjmlp wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scala and Kotlin both have projects for AOT compilation to native code. You can also get it today with any commercial JDK like Excelsior JET.

> Scala and Kotlin both have projects for AOT compilation to native code Not sure about Kotlin (stable version of the language was only recently released; more likely a stable JS target is higher on the priority list), but Scala Native isn't production ready, will likely be at least a year from now; same goes for Scala Meta, and Dotty's even further out, minimum 2 years away. Swift has a head start here, and a huge c…

You missed the part that AOT native compilers for JVM languages already exist today, but I accept that people don't want to pay for them.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#140

Post by misterdata »

Razengan wrote: post #99
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.

> this attitude to dog fooding isn't great. The Dock and a few other components of macOS Sierra are written in 100% Swift, according to this year's WWDC.

The Dock? Why would they completely rewrite the Dock?
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