Silver: A free implementation of Swift for .NET, Java, Android, and Cocoa • Hacker News Board

djur wrote: post #13

brudgers wrote: post #10

Genuinely curious. Why Swift for multi-platform rather than C#, Clojure, JavaScript, or ?

Swift is statically typed, so it doesn't really compete with JS or Clojure. The company already has a C# implementation for sale. Also, Swift was designed to compile to native code, unlike any of the other three languages.

.NET has NGEN since 1.0.

Re: Silver: A free implementation of Swift for .NET, Java, Android, and Cocoa

#36

Post by andrewchambers » Mon, Feb 09, 2015, 7:13 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #33

[deleted]

Apples? I prefer oranges.

Re: Silver: A free implementation of Swift for .NET, Java, Android, and Cocoa

#37

Post by vorg » Mon, Feb 09, 2015, 7:19 AM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #6

So, is the Java version now a JVM language, like Scala and Groovy? Can I use it in IntelliJ or do I have to use this IDE they made?

> is the Java version now a JVM language, like Scala and Groovy

I guess so, ditto with .net and android -- that's what happens when a programming language creator, here Apple, specs out a language at the same time they implement it. Could be why Swift is getting many implementations whereas a language only paying lip service to the idea of a spec, say Groovy after Dec 1995, is still stuck on one impl.

Re: Silver: A free implementation of Swift for .NET, Java, Android, and Cocoa

#38

Post by girvo » Mon, Feb 09, 2015, 7:23 AM UTC

Void_ wrote: post #32

I just want to write web apps in Swift. Any news on that front?

So much this. It'd be an excellent alternative to Go, with it's nice type system and pretty advanced PL features: I'd love to write web services in Swift, but that's contingent on being able to deploy it to Linux et al.

Re: Silver: A free implementation of Swift for .NET, Java, Android, and Cocoa

#39

Post by marcosscriven » Mon, Feb 09, 2015, 7:25 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #35

djur wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift is statically typed, so it doesn't really compete with JS or Clojure. The company already has a C# implementation for sale. Also, Swift was designed to compile to native code, unlike any of the other three languages.

.NET has NGEN since 1.0.

You can surprisingly effectively cross-compile C and C++ to Javascript now, with Emscripten.

Re: Silver: A free implementation of Swift for .NET, Java, Android, and Cocoa

#40

Post by josephpmay » Mon, Feb 09, 2015, 7:26 AM UTC

Void_ wrote: post #32

I just want to write web apps in Swift. Any news on that front?

I started working on a Swift web framework this summer, but I abandoned it because the language kept changing too fast for me to keep up. If I get some free time, I'll pick it up again.