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Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

swift.org

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Re: Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

#251

Post by DidYaWipe »

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote: post #46
uhura wrote: post #36

I believe that this long game of Swift being "good for everything" but "better for Apple platforms" will be detrimental to the language. This does not help the language nor seems to bring more people to the ecosystem. Competitors seems to have a combination of: - Being more open-source - Have more contributors - Have a narrower scope Maybe they should consider open sourcing all the tooling (like Xcode) otherwise the…

This has been my experience for a long time. Swift is nice but why would I waste my time working on a language that is too tied to the Apple platform even if it's open-source when we have more universal scripting languages like Python, or languages like Kotlin that are compiled but have more support (because I trust JetBrains way more than Apple at the moment), or languages that are most strict like Rust but have mor…

The Python ecosystem is a sad mess.

Re: Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

#252

Post by DeusExMachina »

isodev wrote: post #206
easeout wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift announced Linux support in 2015 when it went open source. Aspects of parity have taken years, and the Objective-C interop that isn't relevant outside Apple platforms but made adoption take off at all occupied a lot of early effort, but every Swift talk at FOSDEM today was about embedded or Linux server applications, or platform-agnostic C++ and Java interop. What can you possibly mean by "Mac only" or "bare min…

Side note, I think it was hilarious that Swift was allowed on FOSDEM. Even “free” (as in you probably don’t have to pay for a developer account to use it, *unless you want to ship some binary), Swift remains an Apple product.

You don't need an Apple developer account for Swift on server, Windows and Linux.

You need one only to ship apps on Apple platforms, but that's unrelated to Swift. It applies also to apps written in Objective-C, C/C++, and multi-platform language/frameworks like Dart/Flutter.

Re: Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

#253

Post by aalimov_ »

privacyis1mp wrote: post #139
desiderantes wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you haven't heard of Kotlin Multiplatform.

What are your experiences of using Kotlin for modern macOS/iOS development? How's the support looking when Apple releases new XCode?

Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) is neat for android devs that want to be able to code for both platforms using a toolset/language they are familiar with, but for iOS development KMP is a hassle (personal opinion). I’d rather just write the code twice. Also, I actually like Xcode. As for Android Studio, up until the more recent versions the GUI felt really clunky to me (which made working in it a bit of a slog).

Re: Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

#254

Post by jayd16 »

pjmlp wrote: post #234
jayd16 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C#, Unity.

Which rely on a mix of Objective-C and Swift APIs to actually interact with the platform.

What's your point? That's what Apple makes available. I'd use the C# API if that's how they provided it.

If not dominating the games on those plarforms, Unity and C# have a strong footing to say the least. Swift doesn't seem to be making very much headway on platforms where APIs are available in anything else.

Maybe that can chance. It seems like a neat language but "it's popular because apple forces you to use it" is more damning than reassuring.

Re: Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

#255

Post by briandear »

isodev wrote: post #206
easeout wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift announced Linux support in 2015 when it went open source. Aspects of parity have taken years, and the Objective-C interop that isn't relevant outside Apple platforms but made adoption take off at all occupied a lot of early effort, but every Swift talk at FOSDEM today was about embedded or Linux server applications, or platform-agnostic C++ and Java interop. What can you possibly mean by "Mac only" or "bare min…

Side note, I think it was hilarious that Swift was allowed on FOSDEM. Even “free” (as in you probably don’t have to pay for a developer account to use it, *unless you want to ship some binary), Swift remains an Apple product.

Is swift not open source?

Re: Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

#257

Post by tamlin »

caspper69 wrote: post #111
tamlin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft had a research version of the CLR called Rotor (2002) that predated Mono (2004). Rotor built for Windows, FreeBSD, and macOs, albeit with a not-very-open license. When Mono came along, the internal position at Microsoft was surprisingly positive. There was a dev slide deck that went into Mono in some depth. And a telling slide that said it wasn't a threat because the performance wasn't competitive at the ti…

Rotor was BSD licensed, so I suppose if that’s your definition of a not very open license…

Rotor had it's own license:

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

I have various snapshots of the Rotor 1 and 2 sources around and they have the SSCLI license. There is a file that contains BSD licensed code (pal\rotor_pal.h).

Re: Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

#258

Post by ustad »

Apple’s software decisions over the last 15 years have created significant friction for developers trying to build on their platforms. Apple’s approach to software development has felt like it’s prioritizing business interests over the ease and flexibility that developers need to build high-quality, useful software.

Re: Apple is open sourcing Swift Build

#259

Post by dzikimarian »

sgt wrote: post #240
gruuuk wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should have been fully open source with full linux support and parity since day one. That would actually help the language get traction. At this point it's a dying language.

There's a lot more buzz and activity around Swift than many other languages. It's literally up there with Rust, in terms of excitement (perhaps not quite as high). But I think if they get excitement outside of the Apple ecosystem, things should start to get super interesting. Some are already adopting it like Ladybird browser.

Sorry to be mood killer, but I think that might be your bubble. That's a first news about Swift I've seen in a long time and I don't see a reason to try it, given alternatives. Nowhere near Rust level of presence in discussion.
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