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Update on the Swift Project Lead

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Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#131

Post by avivo »

Dangeranger wrote: post #125
avivo wrote: post #121

Perhaps slightly off topic, but relevant to the community—Hacker News comments on stories like this are now being "reported." As one author mentioned at Business Insider, a site where people write about business stuff: > 'As one person said on Hacker News, a site where programmers chat about stuff: "He is leaving Swift in an excellent position and has set up an outstanding structure where Swift is way more than just…

It would seem to me that the reporter should have at the very least reached out to the commenter they were quoting and asked for permission to use them as a source. If it were me writing the story I would have made very sure the source was also reputable and confirmable, as that is not always the case in public forums, regardless of the usually high quality nature of HN commenters.

What if you had only an hour or so to research, write, and publish in order to meet your daily quota?

"If they were writing five posts a day, one former employee recalled, Blodget [CEO of Business Insider] urged them to write six." http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/29/media/business-insider-staff...

These sorts of incentives (and the resulting "reporting" quality) are the natural result of the web we have created.

Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#132

Post by SEJeff »

ricw wrote: post #116
tatoalo wrote: post #107

He went to Tesla as VP of Autopilot SW. Really interesting! https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris-lattner

This is seemingly quite a different technical skill set to have than his previous position. I'm curious as to whether Tesla wants to also transition to swift for automotive code, or whether Chris Lattner was already involved in apple's car project (project titan). Either way, a big win for Tesla and quite a loss for Apple.

Tesla's AP is seemingly built ontop of Nvidia hardware, which is programmed using CUDA. CUDA is built ontop of LLVM, which Chris Lattner created. Seems like an obvious fit if you look at it from a purely technology perspective.

Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#133

Post by animex »

purple-dragon wrote: post #62
spiralganglion wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect people don't see it as a quality comment. Generally short or insubstantial comments receive a more positive response when the tone is positive. Negative, insubstantial comments tend to be downvoted. (I didn't up or down vote, I'm just echoing how it reads to me) Edit: Had your original comment included that extra backstory/justification, it surely wouldn't have been hammered with downvotes. Without it, it j…

Lesson learned; thanks!

+1 for learning. Sometimes my witty comments get misconstrued for snark so I've just stopped leaving these types of comments here. Speaks for the mostly positive S/N ratio here. I don't want to degrade it.

Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#135

Post by xenadu02 »

iagooar wrote: post #56

Swift 4? Wow, they surely are iterating quick... How's the backwards compatibility in Swift between major versions? If I understood correctly, Swift 3 was supposed to be the first production-ready release. Or am I wrong?

Swift 4 has source-level compatibility with Swift 3 though a compiler flag. Some features obviously won't be available but existing code should work. This even goes so far as to present APIs differently so they continue to work (e.g. if a method was renamed Swift 3 mode will continue to offer the old name).

Swift 4 also has ABI stability as a goal so the OSes can begin shipping the Swift Standard Library.

Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#136

Post by xenadu02 »

bsaul wrote: post #120

Aouch... And there goes my enthusiasm for this language. I already felt weird knowing Apple didn't use swift internally for their core product, and seing all the huge bugs and crashes remaining in the swift compiler, now i'm left wondering who in the company is going to have sufficient weight to push this language forward. EDIT : well, on the positive side, he's now free to make the language evolve without caring abo…

A programming language transition takes many years. The toolchain must stabilize. Once you nail things down you add ABI stability so the OS can ship with the standard libraries. Only then can you begin rewriting core components.

It is already publicly known that some components are written in Swift, e.g.: the macOS Dock is a Swift application.

Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#137

Post by mixmastamyk »

purple-dragon wrote: post #130
mixmastamyk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every device I own is made by Apple and has been since 2004. I don't care for this part, fanboyism was old in the 90's.

I think you're projecting. I have bought Apple products because they work best for me in light of other options, but I don't consider them above criticism or reproach. Calling someone a fanboy is just as old (and frankly, quite silly).

Didn't say you were a fanboy. Unfortunately, your defensiveness about being an Apple patriot is boring, which was what I was getting at.

Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#138

Post by pavanky »

SEJeff wrote: post #132
ricw wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is seemingly quite a different technical skill set to have than his previous position. I'm curious as to whether Tesla wants to also transition to swift for automotive code, or whether Chris Lattner was already involved in apple's car project (project titan). Either way, a big win for Tesla and quite a loss for Apple.

Tesla's AP is seemingly built ontop of Nvidia hardware, which is programmed using CUDA. CUDA is built ontop of LLVM, which Chris Lattner created. Seems like an obvious fit if you look at it from a purely technology perspective.

That is a bit of leap isn't it ? Improving the compiler has very little to do with automated driving vehicles.

Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#139

Post by stephencanon »

purple-dragon wrote: post #127
stephencanon wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment does leave me curious why you don't consider any of the numerous other folks at Apple who have made huge contributions to swift/clang/llvm innovators worth following.

It's not that I don't consider any one else worth following; that's neither what I wrote nor meant. My apologies if that's what came across. Surely there are tons of talented folk behind the scenes, and I am not disparaging the people that remain employed with Apple. It's simply that they are (to date) invisible to me. That's not surprising. It's hard to break out as an influential contributor and personality when yo…

> It's hard to break out as an influential contributor and personality when you are perhaps a quiet hero, humble team member, or hidden behind the branding of a large software corporation.

While there are a ton of folks at every large corporation who fit this description, I mentioned swift/clang/llvm specifically because they are big visible open source projects with extremely active and visible contributors. As you said that you follow those projects, I'm surprised that they're invisible to you.

Re: Update on the Swift Project Lead

#140

Post by myrryr »

pavanky wrote: post #138
SEJeff wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's AP is seemingly built ontop of Nvidia hardware, which is programmed using CUDA. CUDA is built ontop of LLVM, which Chris Lattner created. Seems like an obvious fit if you look at it from a purely technology perspective.

That is a bit of leap isn't it ? Improving the compiler has very little to do with automated driving vehicles.

No way is it a leap. Lots of people are doing stuff to llvm to do gpu work. Take mapd for instance. There is a LOT of untapped llvm -> gpu goodness to be had.
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