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Swift at Apple: Migrating the TrueType hinting interpreter

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Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the TrueType hinting interpreter

#51

Post by mschuster91 »

nomel wrote: post #38
AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #37

What's funny is from 2023 (I think), macOS just draws the UI unhinted. You have a 1080p display and you don't want to see the letters in the UI blurred to death? Tough luck, 1080p is incompatible with macOS, everybody needs "retina", and nobody cares that Windows and all Linux DEs look on 1080p just fine. It looks like this hinter will be used only in rendering PDFs, because that's where they test the performance.

My last 1080p monitor was around 20 years ago. I have trouble comprehending people still use them regularly.

The problem is, as soon as you are not on a Mac but Linux or Windows, you are in for an awful, truly awful lot of pain. HiDPI support is a mess because even in the rare case applications are made with HiDPI in mind they are not tested on HiDPI machines.

Other way around, most Mac software is not tested how it behaves on inferior external monitors.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the TrueType hinting interpreter

#53

Post by airstrike »

DenisChetwynd wrote: post #32
airstrike wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days I mainly write Rust but I did write a semi complex iOS app and enjoyed Swift. I just didn't love how slow the type checker was and how it got lost. I recall having to break things into smaller bits to help the compiler, and there were some oddities about the language. The gap between the two languages is quite small, it just makes me wish Apple was also all-in on Rust

maybe so on the surface, but it remains quite massive underneath; these languages are fundamentally different and target entirely different use cases

I'm not sure Rust has one specific use case as its main goal, despite being immediately suitable for systems programming.

I use it for making user-facing desktop applications, to name one example.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the TrueType hinting interpreter

#54

Post by commandersaki »

MBCook wrote: post #47
pjmlp wrote: post #2

During the State of Platform keynote, on the subject of Swift adoption across macOS, several examples were given, not only TrueType engine. RIS is happening across all OS levels, if the keynote is to be believed.

They’ve been doing it for years. I don’t remember how we first knew, but I know they’ve been using Swift in kernels for at least some of the other chips like the Secure Enclave or whatever. I’m not sure exactly which. I assume it’s some of the code and not all. But it’s not new in the abstract. That said I don’t think I’ve heard of it in the kernel of MacOS on the main processor. That may be new. Either way this is c…

I know internally they use an IPsec implementation written by Rust (I think in the iCloud infra). Heard this from an ex-Apple engineer Ben (forgot his last name) that did a wonderful presentation of Rust from first principles. He said that it was hard to get people in on Rust when most would argue for Swift.

Edit: This is the guy: https://rustcurious.com/course/

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the TrueType hinting interpreter

#55

Post by pohl »

ecshafer wrote: post #24
jadengeller wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern Swift borrows a lot from Rust! And it also has its own benefits, both ergonomic and also supporting eg generic in dynamic libraries

Swift and Rust were developed at similar times. I think of them more as having similar influences than borrowing from each other.

There’s no reason to invent your own head canon, the influence was openly acknowledged when Swift was new and it continues now that the language is developed out in the open (see Swift Ownership Manifesto)

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the TrueType hinting interpreter

#57

Post by andrekandre »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #14
dgellow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I got Apple is using claude code A LOT internally

Yes they are using Claude Code - not the Xcode agents. It worries me. I hope Codex adoption picks up there.

thats a shame if true, they really should be dog-fooding that horrible agent ui in xcode to bring it up to a usable state

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the TrueType hinting interpreter

#58

Post by bschwindHN »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #45
AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #37

What's funny is from 2023 (I think), macOS just draws the UI unhinted. You have a 1080p display and you don't want to see the letters in the UI blurred to death? Tough luck, 1080p is incompatible with macOS, everybody needs "retina", and nobody cares that Windows and all Linux DEs look on 1080p just fine. It looks like this hinter will be used only in rendering PDFs, because that's where they test the performance.

macOS has been drawing unhinted text for an eternity, and for those who can tolerate it on low-DPI screens, it's a great thing: the letter shapes look the same at all sizes, and the spacing between letters is consistent at all sizes.

I'm a high DPI snob so I haven't used a low res monitor for work in forever, but isn't the entire point of font hinting to make the text more legible at smaller pixel grid sizes? Yes, of course the shapes are more consistent since the hinter isn't touching them, but isn't the end result just less legible text?

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the TrueType hinting interpreter

#60

Post by wahnfrieden »

andrekandre wrote: post #57
wahnfrieden wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they are using Claude Code - not the Xcode agents. It worries me. I hope Codex adoption picks up there.

thats a shame if true, they really should be dog-fooding that horrible agent ui in xcode to bring it up to a usable state

A lot of devs are tricked into using it because it’s official
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