Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#1

Post by fidotron » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 5:03 PM UTC

Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java
swift.org

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#2

Post by quux » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

I'm hoping to hear some good news at WWDC for swift development in editors other than Xcode (VSCode, Neovim, etc.) Last year they said "we need to meet backend developers where they are" and announced plans to improve sourcekit-lsp and other efforts.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#3

Post by sureglymop » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 5:53 PM UTC

quux wrote: post #2

I'm hoping to hear some good news at WWDC for swift development in editors other than Xcode (VSCode, Neovim, etc.) Last year they said "we need to meet backend developers where they are" and announced plans to improve sourcekit-lsp and other efforts.

I hope so too! We even have an official Kotlin LSP now... maybe that serve as inspiration.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#4

Post by netbioserror » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

A win on the board for ARC? Can anyone with more deep GC knowledge explain why this might be, considering the tweaks they made to G1? Is this a specific workload advantage, or does it apply generally?

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#5

Post by paxys » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

> In comparison with the previous Java service, the updated backend delivers a 40% increase in performance, along with improved scalability, security, and availability.

As is always the case with such rewrites, the big question is whether the improvements came from the choice of language or because they updated a crusty legacy codebase and fixed bugs/bottlenecks.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#6

Post by candiddevmike » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

quux wrote: post #2

I'm hoping to hear some good news at WWDC for swift development in editors other than Xcode (VSCode, Neovim, etc.) Last year they said "we need to meet backend developers where they are" and announced plans to improve sourcekit-lsp and other efforts.

IMO, Apple has quite the track record of never "meeting X where they are". They could make Xcode cross platform, but they never will.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#7

Post by st3fan » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 5:56 PM UTC

quux wrote: post #2

I'm hoping to hear some good news at WWDC for swift development in editors other than Xcode (VSCode, Neovim, etc.) Last year they said "we need to meet backend developers where they are" and announced plans to improve sourcekit-lsp and other efforts.

This project is getting more mature https://github.com/swiftlang/vscode-swift

And https://github.com/swiftlang/sourcekit-lsp an be used in any LSP compatible editor like Neovim.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#8

Post by tiffanyh » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 5:58 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #5

> In comparison with the previous Java service, the updated backend delivers a 40% increase in performance, along with improved scalability, security, and availability. As is always the case with such rewrites, the big question is whether the improvements came from the choice of language or because they updated a crusty legacy codebase and fixed bugs/bottlenecks.

I'd typically agree with your comment but ...

Given that they also experienced a 90% reduction in Memory Usage (presumably from Java GC vs Swift AOT memory management) - it seems more likely the gains are in fact from the difference in languages.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#9

Post by st3fan » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 6:00 PM UTC

candiddevmike wrote: post #6

quux wrote: post #2

I'm hoping to hear some good news at WWDC for swift development in editors other than Xcode (VSCode, Neovim, etc.) Last year they said "we need to meet backend developers where they are" and announced plans to improve sourcekit-lsp and other efforts.

IMO, Apple has quite the track record of never "meeting X where they are". They could make Xcode cross platform, but they never will.

There would be no point in doing that. All the devs they care about already have Macs. If you are on Windows or Linux and you want to work on Swift server side code then you can use their official LSP or VSCode extension in your favorite editor.

Re: Swift at Apple: Migrating the Password Monitoring Service from Java

#10

Post by plorkyeran » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 6:14 PM UTC

tiffanyh wrote: post #8

paxys wrote: post #5

> In comparison with the previous Java service, the updated backend delivers a 40% increase in performance, along with improved scalability, security, and availability. As is always the case with such rewrites, the big question is whether the improvements came from the choice of language or because they updated a crusty legacy codebase and fixed bugs/bottlenecks.

I'd typically agree with your comment but ... Given that they also experienced a 90% reduction in Memory Usage (presumably from Java GC vs Swift AOT memory management) - it seems more likely the gains are in fact from the difference in languages.

The typical rule of thumb is that getting good performance out of tracing GC requires doubling your memory usage, so a 90% reduction suggests that they made significant improvements on top of the language switch.