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Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

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Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#131
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big if. From what I've read, SwiftUI isn't even a great Mac/iOS GUI framework yet. And Windows and Linux are drastically more different than those two.

I really enjoy swiftUI. It appears like it tried to emulate react and succeeded on a few fronts, is better in a few fronts (child modifying parent variable), and worse in a few fronts (side effects). That being said, my experience with SwiftUI users is that they don't like it because it is so different from the standard Mac experience (props and re-renders and state...). And the documentation is poor (IMO has been Ap…

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Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would it provide that Qt + QML don't right now? (if we assume that the crossplatform GUI is the killer feature)

Every time mobile cross-platform is discussed, someone brings up Qt when it's less popular for mobile development than React Native, Flutter, Xamarin, or PhoneGap/Codova. Maybe even less than Ionic, NativeScript, or Appcelerator. Why even bother with such a niche solution? Are there even live cases of mobile apps using Qt?

The article context is Windows and Linux. I'm not sure where "mobile cross-platform is discussed".

But if you want to go to actual cross-platform-beyond-desktop, Qt is still massive on other devices. From cars to TVs to smart fridges.

Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would it provide that Qt + QML don't right now? (if we assume that the crossplatform GUI is the killer feature)

A modern, powerful memory safe language? C++ is hardly a good choice for making casual small GUI apps.

Like Crystal, Go and Rust? (and QML for the basic events handling)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_bindings_for_...

Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#134
But why?

Sure, there are people who want to tinker with it for fun, but outside of that what is the point in having Swift on Linux and Windows?

You can't use it to build mac or iOS apps on Linux because the important libraries aren't there. There is no cross platform UI and Apple isn't likely to port and support theirs from macOS. If you are into servers then you have plenty of better languages options with established ecosystems. Maybe there are some command line apps on macOS which can now be ported to Linux/Window, but beyond that, what is the point? Where is Apple trying to go with this?

Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#135

> . It is hard to think that any Windows programmer would prefer Swift as a language over .NET languages, as many commenters pointed out on Reddit, but a port of Swift UI on Windows could be a game changer. Everybody would jump to Swift [for new projects] if it meant a cross-platform GUI framework.

I have doubts. We already have cross-platform languages with decent GUI like Java (people give it tons of shit but I bet you use a Java GUI every day without knowing it). Python has some decent ones too though.

And of course Electron, which is somehow even worse than Java.

Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#136

> . It is hard to think that any Windows programmer would prefer Swift as a language over .NET languages, as many commenters pointed out on Reddit, but a port of Swift UI on Windows could be a game changer. Everybody would jump to Swift [for new projects] if it meant a cross-platform GUI framework.

What is the relative efficiency penalty these days, for using JavaScript to build the GUI, as opposed to using native code?

Like, isn’t VSCode all JavaScript? Surprisingly, this is probably what allowed Microsoft to build software that runs on both Window, Mac, and Linux! The JavaScript platform, ultimately became what Java dreamed of becoming back in the 1990s. And without the need to install a separate virtual machine layer, but at the expense of more inefficient code.

But VSCode is painfully slow, if you run it on an older PC.

And you’re not going to be running Windows 10 on a 15 year old PC anymore.

So could this mean, that software companies are going to force people to buy newer hardware, to run their programs? Most likely. Apple has programmed the consumer into spending unnecessarily for new hardware every year.

Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#137

> . It is hard to think that any Windows programmer would prefer Swift as a language over .NET languages, as many commenters pointed out on Reddit, but a port of Swift UI on Windows could be a game changer. Everybody would jump to Swift [for new projects] if it meant a cross-platform GUI framework.

Microsoft is working on cross platform GUI framework. I am not sure how i feel them choosing react native instead of something like Flutter. Maybe befause React native uses OS UI components while Flutter creates everything from scratch. https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/

Microsoft also has Xamarin, which is a bigger deal for them than React Native.

Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#138

> . It is hard to think that any Windows programmer would prefer Swift as a language over .NET languages, as many commenters pointed out on Reddit, but a port of Swift UI on Windows could be a game changer. Everybody would jump to Swift [for new projects] if it meant a cross-platform GUI framework.

What would it provide that Qt + QML don't right now? (if we assume that the crossplatform GUI is the killer feature)

Hate to say it, but the sanest thing to do if you need a cross platform UI is use Java. Your other choice is Electron, which is way slower and uses many times as much ram

Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please explain why?

No OP, and I don't know much about game development, but "without any change at all" is too strong. SDL only does so much, and you still need platform-specific APIs for file access, networking (if applicable), threading, etc. So you'll still need platform-specific code until someone writes those abstractions in Swift.

Swift Foundation is cross platform and provided by apple

Re: Swift 5.3 Will Be Supported on Windows and Additional Linux Distributions

#140

> . It is hard to think that any Windows programmer would prefer Swift as a language over .NET languages, as many commenters pointed out on Reddit, but a port of Swift UI on Windows could be a game changer. Everybody would jump to Swift [for new projects] if it meant a cross-platform GUI framework.

I have doubts. We already have cross-platform languages with decent GUI like Java (people give it tons of shit but I bet you use a Java GUI every day without knowing it). Python has some decent ones too though. And of course Electron, which is somehow even worse than Java.

A colleagues computer lastly crashed. turned out pycharm took 14gb of ram..

wtf.

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