Hey guys, do you know if swift will be ever open-sourced? After the WWDC they said that was early to think about it while in beta. So, what's the status now?
What is the practical difference if it's open-source or not? It'll still be OSX-native code, and every OSX user has access to it for free anyway. Or would that enable a Linux port?
> Or would that enable a Linux port?
I would be interested in a Swift port for Linux server-side/command line dev. Not so much client UI dev. Swift on Linux servers could help Apple sell more Macbooks to developers.
Can anyone tell me about the interop situation? I'm working on my first iOS app and doing it all the old way with Obj-C, and some things have been a little difficult to grok even though they've been around a while(AVFoundation). I'm very interested in the new Metal graphics API that Apple showed at their presentation. Not sure if I should just switch to Swift for everything now or continue learning/working in Obj-C a…
I wouldn't recommend Swift to anyone that's new to the iOS SDK. I answered this question recently on stack overflow ( http://stackoverflow.com/a/25751738/77567 ). Here's what I said: - Objective-C will be around and supported for a long time. (Apple has a massive amount of Objective-C source code that it's not going to port to Swift any time soon.) - Almost all iOS tutorials, examples, and books use Objective-C. - Al…
Apple could dramatically accelerate this process by switching their own new development from ObjC to Swift. The huge amount of legacy code means this couldn't happen overnight, but if Apple is obviously making the switch for their own new development, Swift will have a huge credibility boost. Apple wouldn't be able to abandon it (or let development stall) without hurting themselves. Until Apple puts themselves at a similar degree of risk as other Swift adopters, developers are going to wonder about the wisdom of committing to an Apple-only platform that Apple hasn't committed to.
Ah. Well, other languages also get new features, improved performance, and refined syntax after 1.0. Are you objecting to the implication that the pace of development here will be more rapid, or an assumption that they plan on making backwards-incompatible changes?
I'm objecting to saying "we have reached 1.0" when what they really mean is "we are releasing 1.0 beta 1"
That isn't true. Swift has been dev for quite a long time in secret.
Regarding which basic features they had to add after the first wave of beta feedbacks I don't believe them that they have been developing + using the language for years.
It wasn't in heavy use, Chris Lattner was experimenting with it solo i thought.
My brother has been using swift to learn some programming. I don't have a mac, let alone iTunes. Is there a legal way for me to download/purchase a manual to help him with his progress?
The language manual is free at apple.com
And the official e-book is available in multiple formats (PDF, MOBI, ePUB) on http://swiftlang.eu
What is the practical difference if it's open-source or not? It'll still be OSX-native code, and every OSX user has access to it for free anyway. Or would that enable a Linux port?
> Or would that enable a Linux port? I would be interested in a Swift port for Linux server-side/command line dev. Not so much client UI dev. Swift on Linux servers could help Apple sell more Macbooks to developers.
OCaml, F#, Haskell, Standard ML all with a longer history and (except SML) being used at the industry.
C# is hideous to get running consistently (if at all) with recent versions and libraries cross platform. Perhaps this will change in the future, but they've not been particularly brilliant about it over the past decade
I don't know what libraries you talking about but nearly everything from nuget starting with image processing and ending with orms and crypto work just fine on linux. Even more when K will come out I don't think there will be any worries at all.
NuGet doesn't quite work just fine on Linux, but it's getting better. Slowly.
Why is a programming language without any open source implementation getting so much attention?
Because it's Apple. When Swift was released every hipster and his cat jumped the wagon on how great it is. I even saw someone trying to make webstack out of it.
It couldn't be the quality of the language or the popularity of the platform. Just "hipsters".