Comment by frizlab
12 hours ago
How so? I can indeed target every layer of the software stack using Swift, today.
E.g. ClearSurgery[0] is written fully in Swift, including the real-time components running on the Linux boxes.
12 hours ago
How so? I can indeed target every layer of the software stack using Swift, today.
E.g. ClearSurgery[0] is written fully in Swift, including the real-time components running on the Linux boxes.
I _can_ do the same with Rust, doesn't mean it's "the language I reach for" for making e.g. a website. Because the tooling, ergonomics, hireability factor, etc. are still very harshly against it.
Same with Swift, but I'd call that more of a wasted opportunity because Apple, unlike Rust Foundation, has a mountain of money to make it happen, and yet they don't seem to care.
> They don't seem to care.
I don’t believe that’s true. Things are moving constantly, and in the right direction. Then again it would help if you cited particular grievances, because being a regular (cross-platform/cross-target) Swift user I am not sure what you are talking about…
I did not choose ClearSurgery’s example randomly. I was at a conference recently where the CTO was here, and he explicitly told us they were moving fast thanks to the Swift ecosystem. (I am not working there personally, nor am I affiliated.)
they seem to be adding more and more keywords
if they really want me to use this lang for everything, they'd have to 1. massively improve compilation speed, 2. get the ecosystem going (what's the correct way to spin up an http server like with express?) and 3. get rid of roughly 150 of the 200 keywords there are
especially w.r.t. the last one, of course everyone frets at huge breaking changes like this, so it won't happen, so people won't use it
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> I don’t believe that’s true. Things are moving constantly, and in the right direction.
Hah! I'll use that argument if I ever get PIP'd.
No but seriously, constantly moving doesn't mean fast enough. Swift took took long to have cross-platform support.
And it is still uberslow to compile. To the point of language servers giving up on analyzing it and timeout.
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I don't know why anyone would want to use Apple tools if they are not developing for Apple platforms. Apple barely maintains compatibility for their own platforms, using Swift on a non-Apple platform is setting yourself up for doubule pain.
> Apple barely maintains compatibility for their own platforms...
You're commenting on a post about an update... that they apparently don't do? What?
Why are you interpreting this comment as "never receives updates"? It takes great effort to maintain API compatibility, some things aren't improved or are implicitly deprecated.
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That was true for Swift 2, maybe a little for Swift 3, but it has not been true since a long time now…
In a way it still is true. Swift works on Windows and Linux until it doesn't. It's taken until a couple years ago for other build systems to get swift support (which I suppose is the fault of said build system, but Swift taking so long to be cross-platform contributed to that), and even now it (still) doesn't quite work right. C interop is a mess requiring hacks to generate clang modules to actually get Swift to see them (and CMake for example provides no easy way of doing this, or last time I checked it didn't). Oh and Swift tends to take over the linker and compilation pipelines when you enable it, at least with CMake, because... Reasons? I honestly don't know why. It causes very weird errors when I integrated Swift code into my C++ project that were a pain to actually diagnose. I eventually got it working, but still, it wasn't simple or seamless.
If cross platform support took so long, it's a major red flag.
Plus Swift is arguably too unnecessarily complex now.
And there's Rust/Zig so why use Swift for low level?
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Out of curiosity, could you point to a tech blog or something else going over clearsurgery's stack? That's really interesting
That it's designed for a thing and becoming the go-to choice for that thing can be far apart indeed.
It just works. One language. Many platforms. Incredible performance.
With a simple tooling. No ugly script. Everything is naturally integrated.
> No ugly script
What’s that supposed to mean?
The typical Apple sales pitch. Forgive me for assuming it’s only surface level.
Isn’t that Go?
Go and “simple tooling” don’t really belong in the same sentence. Powerful tooling, sure, but simple?
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