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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

#191

Post by xenihn »

cableshaft wrote: post #123
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.

I interviewed at IBM for a position making Enterprise template apps for iPad working directly with Apple, and the main reason they said they passed on me was while I had a good amount of Objective-C experience, I had only dabbled with Swift on my spare time and had difficulty answering a couple of the questions they grilled me on in Swift. They specifically said I should have had more professional Swift experience wh…

Just curious, what were some of the Swift questions?

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#192

Post by euyyn »

stepanhruda wrote: post #152
hellofunk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I thought the question you replied to was about IBM's implementation, and thus their github page for it.

What? They don't have their own implementation...

I've heard they ported GCD to Linux, though. Would love for that to be open-source.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#193

Post by cheriot »

cheriot wrote: post #26

I see a bunch of stuff in their github ( https://github.com/ibm-swift ), but not the language implementation itself. Does anyone know what its license is?

Edit: My mistake. I read "IBM’s official introduction of IBM Bluemix Runtime for Swift" as IBM writing their own Swift implementation like they did for Java a while back.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#194

Post by st3v3r »

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.

Apple isn't doing anything. That team is. And at the end of the day, their job is to get shit done, not test new languages.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#195

Post by walshemj »

jmacd wrote: post #22

Hilarious that IBM still thinks of the enterprise as the arbiter of quality. Consumer is now setting the defacto standards, including on things like information security. IBM's days of having a voice in that conversation are probably more limited than they realize.

really you do know the difference between a consumer product and carrier grade equipment. Apple abandoned the enterprise years ago and arguably anything larger than small boutique businesses.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#196

Post by nailer »

DigitalJack wrote: post #102
azernik wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary - they've usually raced headfirst into abandoning old technologies for the hot new thing (early to have only CD and no floppy, early to get rid of CD drive altogether, early to go to USB-C, early to go to 802.11ac, etc.) They've used their weight to create a one-company network effect for up-and-coming standards and technology.

Using their weight, huh. Apple hit 10% market share with the Mac for the first time in 2012. I think it's something like 15% now.

Do you think laptops are the dominant computing device?

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#197

Post by iamleppert »

What exactly do you need in a server-side language these days? Most of the interaction is done on the client, in javascript. Your web service should just be responsible for handling basic request/response, CRUD operations and delegating to other more specialized systems when the need arises, which can be written in the most appropriate language given the problem domain and tools/libraries available. More often than not what dictates language choice is supporting libraries that you'd rather not rewrite from scratch. How good are they, how long have they been around? etc...

For that, its often just easiest to use anything non-blocking to serve as the main handler that communicates to your other services. For me, I use node but there are other choices if you don't like javascript.

Most of the time it's not worthwhile to switch to a language just because IBM deems it suitable. I've picked up more than a few freelance gigs where IBM have botched the job and grossly overcharged for something that could be done simply. My clients appreciate my honesty, openness, and simplicity of work.

What they really mean when they say "Swift is ready for the enterprise" is that THEY are ready --- they have developed all the sales materials, support orgs, and hired the "correct" developers (in this case Swift ones) to run their gambit on as big of fish as they can.

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#198

Post by hota_mazi »

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.

I don't think you can draw any conclusions about Apple's attitude toward dogfooding. I'm sure Swift is being heavily dogfooded there, they were just telling you that it hadn't reached the point where it could be used in the project they had in mind for you (especially if it's back end, which seems to be the case since your project was in Java).

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#199

Post by hota_mazi »

DigitalJack wrote: post #102
azernik wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary - they've usually raced headfirst into abandoning old technologies for the hot new thing (early to have only CD and no floppy, early to get rid of CD drive altogether, early to go to USB-C, early to go to 802.11ac, etc.) They've used their weight to create a one-company network effect for up-and-coming standards and technology.

Using their weight, huh. Apple hit 10% market share with the Mac for the first time in 2012. I think it's something like 15% now.

7% worldwide in 2016 [1].

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/11/apple-mac-market-numbers-idc/

Re: IBM says Swift is ready for the enterprise

#200

Post by pjmlp »

mikeash wrote: post #181
pjmlp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The compiler can provide better error messages and guide the user, whereas with library types, at least on C++'s case it requires help from external tooling. With Rust, while you can make use of the type system, it is harder for the compiler to provide such guidance, unless the types are somehow blessed.

What sort of guidance does Swift provide here? And nothing prevents Rust or C++ compilers from becoming aware of these types and providing specialized diagnostics for them.

I said it can, not that it does it already.

My Swift experience is constrained to the GNU/Linux version, so I don't know if XCode is already doing something in this direction.

Sure one can have blessed library types that the compiler knows about, but then from language design point of view it creates a decision between those types and others written by developers, but with similar semantics.

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