Why Apple’s Swift Language Will Instantly Remake Computer Programming

6 points by drakaal 10 years ago | 6 comments
  • andrewchambers 10 years ago
    To be honest, this article is fairly laughable. Swift is vendor locked to the extreme, has a buggy closed source implementation and is no more revolutionary than any other modern language coming out.

    It's only a thing for apple developers.

    • drakaal 10 years ago
      "But even if Swift remains an Apple-only thing, it’s impact could be greater than any other language that has sprung up in recent years, and it may achieve mass adoption faster than any language in modern history. "

      I don't even like Node, but it is hard to imagine that Swift will get adoption faster than Node.

      If 100% of Objective C users switch the adoption could be fast since you'd have a new mature-ish language as the preferred language for a large install base. But I don't see the libraries and modules being there to allow most devs to just switch right away.

      • potatolicious 10 years ago
        > "But I don't see the libraries and modules being there to allow most devs to just switch right away."

        Obj-C libraries have interfaces auto-translated to Swift, so barring some edge cases are already entirely usable.

        Writing a Swift app isn't a problem right now because of lack of library support, but mostly because the compiler still likes to segfault and taunt you. Frequently.

        Either way, I like the language, I've been working with it for the past month, and it's neat and brings a bunch of really nice concepts to the table.

        But "remake computer programming"? Wut.

        Swift will quickly become the standard for OSX and iOS code, but that is but a tiny corner of programming-dom.

        • drakaal 10 years ago
          Thanks for the info, I don't do much Apple.

          I shared because I think it is worth hearing the claims even if I don't share the author's view.

        • lanna 10 years ago
          Your comparison is not fair. Node is not a language, Node is a runtime environment that uses JavaScript, a language that is pretty old and was already known and used by many devs.
        • dang 10 years ago
          This is a dupe. It's a good idea to check before submitting:

          https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Why+Apple%E2%80%99s+Swift+Language...