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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

#181

Post by realharo »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #165
realharo wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it is actually good is subjective though. There are tons of existing cross-platform UI frameworks (Qt, wx, libui, JavaFX, TornadoFX, ...). The comment above says "Everybody would jump to Swift [for new projects] if it meant a cross-platform GUI framework." And yet people are still wondering why Electron ends up being the technology of choice for so many desktop apps.

> Electron ends up being the technology of choice for so many desktop apps. probably because of the large number of JS only developers.

I very much doubt that is a major reason. Language itself is rarely the issue, unless you're reusing code from other parts of the project (which many projects are, e.g. VS Code with Monaco).

I have spent far too much time on HN recently in related discussions.

Having access to libraries like React and its huge ecosystem is a big plus for productivity (example vs. Qt at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23154315).

Building custom UIs is also very easy with the flexibility that HTML provides (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23164595), even though it can be done with other technologies (and there are some examples of that).

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

#182

Post by dep_b »

brigandish wrote: post #64

XCode (and hence most of the useful parts of using the Apple development ecosystem) as of v11.4 won't install on Macs running Mojave it's actually better, in my view, to use Mono/C# and things like Xamarin than start off with Swift and think you can port the other way and not be forced into upgrading your laptop for the privilege of writing apps for Apple systems.

There are other editors for Swift out there, like AppCode. I do hate the fact that I'm forced to upgrade to a new OS version somewhere within half a year. Cataline was barely tolerable when I had to jump to it.

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

#183

Post by MattDamonSpace »

sime2009 wrote: post #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 establish…

They’re looking to build demand over time by making Swift available in as many places as possible.

And this is the Swift Open Source team, not Apple specifically. It’s not an Apple business decision (aside from lowering the learning hurdle for new iOS projects)

Not to mention there’s Swift for TensorFlow, would be nice if you could handle your code locally on a Windows machine: https://github.com/tensorflow/swift/blob/master/docs/WhySwif...

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

#184

Post by virvar »

akmittal wrote: post #125
judge2020 wrote: post #68

> . 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/

I think they are choosing react native because they genuinely like react.

I don’t remember which video it was exactly, but one of the higher ups talked about future technologies within Microsoft and how they were doing more and more GUI-based thing with react. And if you look at it, they’ve done pretty amazing things within the JavaScript eco-system in general. Office 365 is amazing, Visual Studio Code is amazing and it just wouldn’t make sense for them to go from typescript to dart.

Especially when you consider how unfinished flutter is. We’re a C#/power shell with a little Python shop with a lot of Enterprise Microsoft techs. We still considered Flutter because Xamarin wasn’t working out for us and we’re not big on JS or big enough to do native, but flutter just doesn’t fill our needs either. That’s anecdotal, but the difference is that react and react native are proven techs and flutter still isn’t.

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

#185

Post by AsyncAwait »

judge2020 wrote: post #68

> . 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.

Swift is also a much nicer language than C# in my opinion.

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

#186

Post by veidr »

ashtonkem wrote: post #70
judge2020 wrote: post #68

> . 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.

Creating a good cross-platform GUI framework is probably harder than creating a good cross-platform language.

    Creating a good cross-platform
    GUI framework is probably harder
    than creating a good cross-platform
    language.
Way way way way way harder, I'd think. It's basically never been done in the modern era. All the successful ones from the past look (and work) like garbage on a modern desktop computer (I use gnucash for my dad's business, ha ha).

SwiftUI is an interesting re-think, though, and as a Windows 10 user, I can tell you that the current "native" experience sucks green potatoes. There are like 9 or 12 different UI technologies I must interact with each month. All with different text sizes and massively inconsistent UI paradigms.

So I think there is an opportunity here.

But, I bet SwiftUI → Web will come first. And if that happens, SwiftUI on Windows, and desktop Linux, will be a no-brainer and will happen.

And if it doesn't happen, then probably SwiftUI won't matter outside of the Apple ecosystem, and that will mean Swift won't matter much in the end, either. (EDIT: I don't mean Apple need do this and I don't expect they will. But SwiftUI is just an API; anybody could port it to whatever environment they want, and there are already some nascent third-party efforts to implement it for HTML/web.)

Full disclosure disclaimer: former NewtonScript programmer

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

#187

Post by berti »

tjpnz wrote: post #167
judge2020 wrote: post #68

> . 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.

>Everybody would jump to Swift [for new projects] if it meant a cross-platform GUI framework. Not really. I'm sure there are plenty who will just stick with Qt based options or even Electron. I've seen a lot of stuff built in PyQt by people who aren't strictly developers and who learned Python only because it fits with some other aspect of their job. There isn't a lot to incentivise them in learning a new language.

Qt licensing can be problematic depending on your project. They also no longer publish LTS releases under an open-source license. Swift UI would presumably not be encumbered in this way.

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

#188

Post by brigandish »

zapzupnz wrote: post #163
brigandish wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but surely that's a workaround for devs who are primarily on non-Mac systems who want to use native features for Mac. What's the win with Swift if I'm developing on Windows over using, say, C# and benefitting from all the support for my primary base and then using something like Xamarin. I'm on a Mac already (Macbook with 10.14) - am I really going to have to run a VM because of a point release ? (That goes for…

> because of a point release The second set of digits represents major releases. The third set represents point releases. macOS has been out, using this versioning scheme for a little over 20 years. Don't belittle the work between major releases just because the first set of digits hasn't changed. Windows Vista through Windows 8.1 are all 6.x, but nobody would claim that Vista and its service packs, 7 and its service…

> The second set of digits represents major releases. The third set represents point releases.

It's called being facetious. Regardless, Xcode definitely does not use the 2nd digit for major releases[1], which does require 10.15.

> Windows Vista…

Completely irrelevant.

> Also, if your machine supports 10.14, it supports 10.15. The last MacBook Pro that dropped support for anything more recent came out in 2011.

Yeah, the reality for my machine is that the upgrade did not take, which is funny considering I only tried to upgrade because of the Xcode requirements.

> Nobody's asking you to buy a new laptop.

They sell hardware. If you think they introduce breaking changes to the operating system tied to the hardware because of necessity then I have a bridge to sell you.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode#Xcode_11.x_(since_SwiftU...

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

#189

Post by DagAgren »

vijaybritto wrote: post #121
stu_k wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although it technically has cross platform GUI, Flutter has actually reimplemented all the native OS widgets. As soon as the OS changes some look and feel your app will look out of date.

Yes it will look out of date. But whats important? A functioning app or good looking one? We all know that websites written for ie6 are out there today making millions in revenue. It always comes down to the functionality not the looks

Both. If you have only one, you have a shit product nobody wants.

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

#190

Post by DagAgren »

ksec wrote: post #149
josephg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve spent the last week learning SwiftUI to see how hard it would be to reimplement Notion in a performant way. It seems really ... unfinished. Like, the default List view is really hard to style. I spent 4 hours yesterday trying to get an unstyled text Button to have a hit target bigger than the characters themselves. Adding a frame with a background worked, but if the frame had no background (or a transparent back…

That is the thing I dont like about the current Apple. They used to release things where you see they put a lot of thoughts into it. Now they are half baked. This isn't so much a problem on Apps ( The Product ) where it is constantly being updated and tweaked. But with code you have the hassle to try and keep up. And the pace of improvement is very very slow. To put things into perspective, Swift UI has been developm…

> But somehow after nearly 6 years Objective-C stills feels better

This experience is shared by basically nobody? I used to love Objective-C, which was unusual even before Swift, but I would not in a million years switch back to using it. Swift is so much better in every single way.

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