Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer • Hacker News Board

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#11

Post by jcurbo » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 1:42 AM UTC

jmgrosen wrote: post #3

He seems to generally like it -- similar to Rust in a lot of ways, but a little higher-level, which is appropriate for its intended uses (iOS and OS X apps). He nor I seem to think that it can replace Rust (especially if they don't open it up!), but it definitely seems like a compelling option. EDIT: Does anyone know if it's possible to try it without a paid iOS / OS X dev license? I'd especially like to try the play…

You only have to be a paid developer to get the beta of XCode; once it comes out of beta, it'll be available on the Mac App Store for free.

That said, it'd be nice to see Swift get open sourced at some point.

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#12

Post by rsynnott » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 1:42 AM UTC

chc wrote: post #4

jmgrosen wrote: post #3

He seems to generally like it -- similar to Rust in a lot of ways, but a little higher-level, which is appropriate for its intended uses (iOS and OS X apps). He nor I seem to think that it can replace Rust (especially if they don't open it up!), but it definitely seems like a compelling option. EDIT: Does anyone know if it's possible to try it without a paid iOS / OS X dev license? I'd especially like to try the play…

They used to offer free student developer memberships, but I think they stopped that a while back. Now you have to be part of one of the paid programs (or be part of a university that's signed up with Apple). It is pretty disappointing that Apple is walling in Swift like this. I was excited about it to begin with, because it looks like a great language, but apparently as Microsoft moves toward openness, Apple is doin…

I'm not sure what makes you think they won't release it; they typically release their LLVM work and the stuff they build on top of it at some point.

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#13

Post by pornel » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 1:43 AM UTC

I hope ideas will flow the other way too, and Rust adopts some sugar from Swift.

I find `if let concrete = optional` sooo much nicer than `match optional { (concrete) => , _ => {} }`.

Rust has solid semantics that covers more than Swift. OTOH Apple has put their UX magic into the language's syntax. Some syntax shortcuts, like `.ShortEnumWhenInContext` are delightful.

The two combined will be the perfect language ;)

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#14

Post by Pacabel » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 1:51 AM UTC

pekk wrote: post #9

jmgrosen wrote: post #3

He seems to generally like it -- similar to Rust in a lot of ways, but a little higher-level, which is appropriate for its intended uses (iOS and OS X apps). He nor I seem to think that it can replace Rust (especially if they don't open it up!), but it definitely seems like a compelling option. EDIT: Does anyone know if it's possible to try it without a paid iOS / OS X dev license? I'd especially like to try the play…

I don't know that there is much question of replacing Rust when it isn't in use except as an unstable experiment with a lot of interest. You could replace Rust with outright vaporware.

Why is that comment getting voted down? Everything it states is true.

Rust isn't stable. It really hasn't seen any serious use.

Even the Rust home page itself currently states, "Rust is a work-in-progress and may do anything it likes up to and including eating your laundry."

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#15

Post by X-Istence » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 1:56 AM UTC

chc wrote: post #4

jmgrosen wrote: post #3

He seems to generally like it -- similar to Rust in a lot of ways, but a little higher-level, which is appropriate for its intended uses (iOS and OS X apps). He nor I seem to think that it can replace Rust (especially if they don't open it up!), but it definitely seems like a compelling option. EDIT: Does anyone know if it's possible to try it without a paid iOS / OS X dev license? I'd especially like to try the play…

They used to offer free student developer memberships, but I think they stopped that a while back. Now you have to be part of one of the paid programs (or be part of a university that's signed up with Apple). It is pretty disappointing that Apple is walling in Swift like this. I was excited about it to begin with, because it looks like a great language, but apparently as Microsoft moves toward openness, Apple is doin…

Xcode 6 is currently in beta, the beta is part of the dev program. Just like the new Yosemite beta is part of the dev program.

Once Xcode/Yosemite are no longer beta they will be released for free, just like the existing Xcode that is freely available from the MAS.

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#16

Post by X-Istence » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 1:58 AM UTC

chc wrote: post #6

jmgrosen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple ends up open sourcing Swift after it cleans it up, perhaps even making it an LLVM project. I see it similarly to how they handled their own AArch64 backend -- proprietary at first, but mostly for secrecy before it was announced and then merging it with the preexisting backend after it was announced.

How much cleaning up do you expect at this point? It's already both announced and released to developers. Obviously it's not 100% finished, but if they intended to open-source it, I wouldn't expect that announcement to come after publicly releasing it.

They haven't publicly released it yet. Xcode 6 which includes Swift is currently part of the beta available as part of the Apple Developer Program.

That means it is still under NDA as well. Most likely after Xcode 6 is released publicly (i.e. available on the Mac App Store) they will do a code dump back to the LLVM project.

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#17

Post by chc » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 2:00 AM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #12

chc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used to offer free student developer memberships, but I think they stopped that a while back. Now you have to be part of one of the paid programs (or be part of a university that's signed up with Apple). It is pretty disappointing that Apple is walling in Swift like this. I was excited about it to begin with, because it looks like a great language, but apparently as Microsoft moves toward openness, Apple is doin…

I'm not sure what makes you think they won't release it; they typically release their LLVM work and the stuff they build on top of it at some point.

I don't mean that they won't release it, but that they haven't indicated any intention to release it except as a binary thrown over the wall into their developer program. They just held a very big developer conference and made no mention of it being free or open-source. Their "LLVM work" up till this point has all been C and Objective-C stuff that's part of the LLVM Project and they have made a big point of that, so I don't really see how it reflects on this, which is not part of the LLVM Project and is not based on existing cross-platform languages where they're competing with other open-source tools.

A proprietary Swift even sort of makes logical sense. I could easily see Apple thinking that since Swift is intimately tied to its proprietary system frameworks, Swift should be proprietary too.

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#18

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 2:05 AM UTC

X-Istence wrote: post #15

chc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used to offer free student developer memberships, but I think they stopped that a while back. Now you have to be part of one of the paid programs (or be part of a university that's signed up with Apple). It is pretty disappointing that Apple is walling in Swift like this. I was excited about it to begin with, because it looks like a great language, but apparently as Microsoft moves toward openness, Apple is doin…

Xcode 6 is currently in beta, the beta is part of the dev program. Just like the new Yosemite beta is part of the dev program. Once Xcode/Yosemite are no longer beta they will be released for free, just like the existing Xcode that is freely available from the MAS.

[deleted]

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#19

Post by eridius » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 2:05 AM UTC

Pacabel wrote: post #14

pekk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that there is much question of replacing Rust when it isn't in use except as an unstable experiment with a lot of interest. You could replace Rust with outright vaporware.

Why is that comment getting voted down? Everything it states is true. Rust isn't stable. It really hasn't seen any serious use. Even the Rust home page itself currently states, "Rust is a work-in-progress and may do anything it likes up to and including eating your laundry."

It's still in development, but it's a far cry from vaporware, and it's already being used in production at at least one company.

Re: Swift – observations from Rust’s original designer

#20

Post by pepper_chico » Tue, Jun 03, 2014, 2:08 AM UTC

Does he knows something of Obj-C? Because a lot what he says coming from elsewhere was already well known in Obj-C, like named parameters, "protocols", etc. Which he barely mentions. I think in the light of Obj-C, the newer C# would be less mentioned.