Closing this as we are no longer pursuing Swift adoption

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

iLemming wrote: post #166

8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, I knew a workplace where open source contributions are fine as long as its not on company PC and network.

No, as far as I know, at Apple, this is strict - you cannot contribute to OSS, period. Not from your own equipment nor your friend's, not even during a vacation. It may cost you your job. Of course, it's not universal for every team, but on teams I know a few people - that's what I heard. Some companies just don't give a single fuck of what you want or need, or where your ideals lie. I suspect it's not just Apple, I…

Post by stephc_int13 » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 2:05 PM UTC

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #205

stephc_int13 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best tool for the job is the one you know and love.

It depends. Many languages are a poor fit for certain use cases, and some are bad at everything beyond a very specific niche. Some are rather unpleasant to write any kind of substantial UI with.

Post by palata » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #231

librasteve wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last years, simplistic languages such as Python and Go have “made the case” that complexity is bad, period. But when humans communicate expertly in English (Shakespeare, JK Rowling, etc) they use its vast wealth of nuance, shading and subtlety to create a better product. Sure you have to learn all the corners to have full command of the language, to wield all that expressive power (and newcomers to English are…

Not sure how I feel about Shakespeare and JK Rowling living in the same parenthesis! Computer languages are the opposite of natural languages - they are for formalising and limiting thought, the exact opposite of literature. These two things are not comparable. If natural language was so good for programs, we’d be using it - many many people have tried from literate programming onward.

Post by librasteve » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 3:16 PM UTC

spongebobism wrote: post #239

librasteve wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last years, simplistic languages such as Python and Go have “made the case” that complexity is bad, period. But when humans communicate expertly in English (Shakespeare, JK Rowling, etc) they use its vast wealth of nuance, shading and subtlety to create a better product. Sure you have to learn all the corners to have full command of the language, to wield all that expressive power (and newcomers to English are…

Perlis's 10th epigram feels germane: > Get into a rut early: Do the same process the same way. Accumulate idioms. Standardize. The only difference(!) between Shakespeare and you was the size of his idiom list - not the size of his vocabulary.

  n = 20  # how many numbers to generate
  a, b = 0, 1
  for _ in range(n):
    print(a, end=" ")
    a, b = b, a + b
  print()

  (0,1,*+*...*)[^20]

Post by bbkane » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 3:48 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #138

bbkane wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe? I feel like there's been lots of efforts to migrate large C++ codebases over the years, and few actually complete the migration. Heck, Google is even making Carbon to try to solve this.

migrating any large project is going to be billions of dollars worth of labor. Language isn't a large factor in that cost, you can save few tens of millions at most with a better language.