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Swift Ported to Android

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Re: Swift Ported to Android

#71

Post by LeoNatan25 »

systems wrote: post #59
leonatan wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lowest common denominator. Terrible for UX for everything but the most basic UI designs, sorry. Each platform requires UI work to make it really fit the platform in question.

but i would say for writing business apps, this isnt really an issue most business users would accept that their apps, look slighly ... unlike common apps on the platform

Which users? Admins don't care about UX, they care about ticking checkboxes to appease management. End users are people like you and me, they want quality from their software. They may be forced to work with less then stellar software, but that does not mean they accept it.

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#72

Post by izacus »

kennywinker wrote: post #64
V-2 wrote: post #57

Surprised noone mentions Kotlin. It's quite Swift-like, backed by JetBrains (Android Studio is based on their IntelliJ Idea), and 1.0 has only just been released. It has full interoperability with Java. Given the above, I don't see much point in using Swift, unless it's one of these projects that are about proving a point (nothing wrong with that and often very interesting).

Two points for using Swift on Android: 1) shared code between your ios, mac, and android apps. 2) you already know swift. That said, there is always a cost to using a non-standard language to develop for a platform. Things like having to translate documentation as you read it, friction between system libraries and your languages standard library, etc. I've not looked at Kotlin in detail, but I wonder how much that fr…

The alternative of course being C++14 with first party support for each OS out there and maturer ecosystem.

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#73

Post by LeoNatan25 »

untog wrote: post #70
Fargren wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Kotlin, but being able to develop libraries in one language and use them in both Android and iOS is huge. I have been using J2Objc for this until now, and while it's a great tool, it forces me to use Java, which I don't love. I would prefer being able to use Kotlin on iOS, but using Swift for Android development is a great boon.

Could you develop libraries that way, though? It would have to be absolutely pure Swift, not using any iOS libraries, like NSURL etc. etc. - surely incredibly limiting.

Not true. Both Foundation and Core Foundation libraries will be eventually ported and open sourced.

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#74

Post by michaelwww »

Aleman360 wrote: post #53
manojlds wrote: post #2

Interesting, in the context of Xamarin acquisition by Microsoft. Swift can very well spoil C#'s steam.

It would be great if Swift could target .Net Core.

I did a little googling because you sparked my curiosity and it's happening. “Silver” brings Apple's Swift language to .NET and I found at least one mention of Silver and .NET Core.

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#75

Post by melling »

V-2 wrote: post #57

Surprised noone mentions Kotlin. It's quite Swift-like, backed by JetBrains (Android Studio is based on their IntelliJ Idea), and 1.0 has only just been released. It has full interoperability with Java. Given the above, I don't see much point in using Swift, unless it's one of these projects that are about proving a point (nothing wrong with that and often very interesting).

Guess what. No one cares if you don't use Swift. Go with Kotlin. It's probably a great choice for you. It seems like a great language and I hope it gains traction.

You're doing that nerd thing where you need to tell the world why something isn't good for you. We'd waste a lot less time if we simply found the group we desired and added value there rather than find another group and tell them why what they're doing doesn't work for you.

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#76

Post by on_and_off »

V-2 wrote: post #57

Surprised noone mentions Kotlin. It's quite Swift-like, backed by JetBrains (Android Studio is based on their IntelliJ Idea), and 1.0 has only just been released. It has full interoperability with Java. Given the above, I don't see much point in using Swift, unless it's one of these projects that are about proving a point (nothing wrong with that and often very interesting).

The main problem with Swift on Android is that AFAIK it is going to be limited to NDK.

There is certainly a niche where it can be useful, but for most developers, it makes it a no go.

Kotlin on the other end is indeed a very good stand-in replacement for java on Android.

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#77

Post by pjmlp »

geodel wrote: post #65
V-2 wrote: post #57

Surprised noone mentions Kotlin. It's quite Swift-like, backed by JetBrains (Android Studio is based on their IntelliJ Idea), and 1.0 has only just been released. It has full interoperability with Java. Given the above, I don't see much point in using Swift, unless it's one of these projects that are about proving a point (nothing wrong with that and often very interesting).

Some people like to avoid Java and languages dependent on JVM. For them any non JVM based solution on android is welcome change. So efforts towards that need no justification as to why any of numerous JVM language is not used first.

Except all major Android APIs are Java only, even pure native apps are actually loaded as .so into a Java process.

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#78

Post by andrewjl »

mwcampbell wrote: post #50
seivan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run some lists with images on them on iPhone 5. Anecdotal, and I am sure you can dig into metal to improve performance, but out of the box, it's kinda poor. I still like React and I'm hopeful React-Native will improve.

Thanks. I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that JavaScriptCore can't use JIT compilation when running in an iOS application other than Safari.

As of iOS 8 that's no longer the case. JSC JIT compilation can be used in native apps. (It's also used by WKWebView.)

http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/JavaScriptCore

"JavaScriptCore is an optimizing virtual machine. JavaScriptCore consists of the following building blocks: lexer, parser, start-up interpreter (LLInt), baseline JIT, a low-latency optimizing JIT (DFG), and a high-throughput optimizing JIT (FTL)."

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#79

Post by moonchrome »

Fargren wrote: post #66
V-2 wrote: post #57

Surprised noone mentions Kotlin. It's quite Swift-like, backed by JetBrains (Android Studio is based on their IntelliJ Idea), and 1.0 has only just been released. It has full interoperability with Java. Given the above, I don't see much point in using Swift, unless it's one of these projects that are about proving a point (nothing wrong with that and often very interesting).

I love Kotlin, but being able to develop libraries in one language and use them in both Android and iOS is huge. I have been using J2Objc for this until now, and while it's a great tool, it forces me to use Java, which I don't love. I would prefer being able to use Kotlin on iOS, but using Swift for Android development is a great boon.

>but being able to develop libraries in one language and use them in both Android and iOS is huge

I have no doubt that there are mobile only apps that would find this valuable - but swift is still only linux/android and osx/ios - if you want truly portable code - that can compile to browser/mobile/server/desktop you're stuck with C++ for the foreseeable future.

Re: Swift Ported to Android

#80

Post by trollingineer »

Fargren wrote: post #66
V-2 wrote: post #57

Surprised noone mentions Kotlin. It's quite Swift-like, backed by JetBrains (Android Studio is based on their IntelliJ Idea), and 1.0 has only just been released. It has full interoperability with Java. Given the above, I don't see much point in using Swift, unless it's one of these projects that are about proving a point (nothing wrong with that and often very interesting).

I love Kotlin, but being able to develop libraries in one language and use them in both Android and iOS is huge. I have been using J2Objc for this until now, and while it's a great tool, it forces me to use Java, which I don't love. I would prefer being able to use Kotlin on iOS, but using Swift for Android development is a great boon.

> develop libraries in one language and use them in both Android and iOS is huge

Because you like not taking advantages of either platform's strengths and using some "tool" to make you an iOS AND Android developer?

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