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Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

developer.apple.com

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Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#61

Post by eridius »

oleganza wrote: post #50
ejdyksen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit to working with the Cocoa APIs will be immense, though. I assume that, now that this feature exists, Apple will begin annotating their Obj-C APIs.

They already started doing it a few months ago with private annotations. This "nonnull"/"nullable" syntax is a result of their work on annotating Cocoa APIs.

They've been doing it for a while in the Swift overlay module. I'm really happy that this is officially added to obj-c because it provides very valuable API documentation, even if it won't have much practical effect on the code.

Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#62

Post by matthewmacleod »

sigzero wrote: post #37
NeoProgramming wrote: post #16

How about opening Swift compiler source code (and porting it to other platforms?) And, what are the OS requirements for xcode 6.3? Is it possible to install it to old macosx system (snow leopard, for example)?

Stop it with the "open and porting". They are not going to do it.

I'm really not sure about that. The language is going to gain much more traction if it's open, QED. That's a benefit to Apple, and I think they know that.

The only reason I can see to not open it up at the moment is that they're not ready for it yet. I reckon it'll come soon enough.

Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#63

Post by austinz »

oleganza wrote: post #42
DaNmarner wrote: post #10

This might be easily overlooked: optional has been introduced (back-ported?) to Objective-C in the form of nullability annotation!

Not exactly. ObjC code cannot usefully benefit from those annotations (yet? more likely ever). At most, it's good for documenting your ObjC code for fellow readers. The actual use appears in the Swiftland where instead of implicitly unwrapped optionals you get proper explicit optionals or explicit non-optionals.

It looks like the annotations will allow the compiler to produce warnings when compiling the Objective-C code, so that's something:

"However, nullability annotations—in addition to improving the experience in Swift—provide new warnings in Objective-C"

Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#64

Post by matthewmacleod »

notsony wrote: post #47
oleganza wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. Chris Lattner was giving some hints around Twitter on how big deal they want to make out of Swift (that is, a ubiquitous systems program). This gives me hope that it'll become open as Clang and ported to other platforms.

Just like FaceTime. It won't happen and all the rumors and gossip based on a few comments will just give false hope to people. Swift was designed to lock-in developers just when objc java converters were gaining popularity.

My understanding is that FaceTime was not opened up more due to the VirnetX lawsuit, and the subsequent redesign that meant all video streams were proxied through Apple servers.

So, I think it's more complex than you're admitting.

Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#65

Post by melling »

WildUtah wrote: post #58
archagon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If let (and optionals in general) is my favorite Swift feature and has immediately made my code 10x more stable from the get-go. Glad to see it get expanded like this.

if-let is great. I don't know where it started (apparently upthread they say Rust and swift have been swapping the idea) but Clojure has had it since 2008.[0] (if-let [name name-whose-value-is-possibly-null] (something-to-do name)) [0] https://clojuredocs.org/clojure.core/if-let

I imagine everything in Swift has been borrowed from another language. OCaml, Go, etc. I'd be more interested in other great language features that are missing from Swift that are in other "classic" languages like OCaml, for instance.

Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#66

Post by WildUtah »

josh64 wrote: post #22
NeoProgramming wrote: post #16

How about opening Swift compiler source code (and porting it to other platforms?) And, what are the OS requirements for xcode 6.3? Is it possible to install it to old macosx system (snow leopard, for example)?

It says this release (6.3) requires Yosemite (but includes SDKs for 10.9 and 10.10). For the record, 5.x doesn't even run on Snow Leopard.

"5.x doesn't even run on Snow Leopard."

Which is a shame because OSX 10.6.8 was the most stable, zippiest performance OSX ever and still had the nice virtual desktop. Sadly I lament the old virtual desktop. I'd still be on it if I could be.

Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#67

Post by WildUtah »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #64
notsony wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like FaceTime. It won't happen and all the rumors and gossip based on a few comments will just give false hope to people. Swift was designed to lock-in developers just when objc java converters were gaining popularity.

My understanding is that FaceTime was not opened up more due to the VirnetX lawsuit, and the subsequent redesign that meant all video streams were proxied through Apple servers. So, I think it's more complex than you're admitting.

"the VirnetX lawsuit"

Garbage patents stabbing the software industry in the back yet again.

Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#68

Post by crucialfelix »

mikeash wrote: post #45
smackfu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need to be at the free level though, not the $100/year, so it's not much of a barrier.

That doesn't seem to be the case. I just made a free account quick to test this, and it won't let me access the betas without being a member of the paid iOS developer program.

I just downloaded 6.3 beta using my free account.

Re: Swift 1.2 and Xcode 6.3 beta

#69

Post by austinz »

pjmlp wrote: post #59
oleganza wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FaceTime is different. I heard how everyone at Apple was surprised when Jobs mentioned "open standard". Here, on the other hand, core team is looking forward making Swift a bigger deal than just Apple's pet language. Sorry, talks about "designed to lock in" is a non-falsifiable theory. If you wanted to build a language for the future and even make it open once it's tested and polished, you would do the same thing: ga…

There is always hope I guess. Swift library is Cocoa and even if they eventually open Swift, it is going to be as useful as Objective-C is outside Mac OS X and iOS. Personally I don't care. What I care is about tools that make my customers happy.

Swift has its own standard library, Foundation for things that fall outside the purview of the native stdlib (e.g. JSON parsing and regular expressions), and ApplicationKit/UIKit for GUI stuff. A multiplatform Swift + stdlib would already be quite useful for non-GUI applications on other platforms.
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