Biggest changes: ABI Stability String reimplemented with UTF-8 encoding Improved support for raw text in string literals Result and SIMD vector types added to the Standard Library Enhancements to...
Biggest changes:
ABI Stability
String reimplemented with UTF-8 encoding
Improved support for raw text in string literals
Result and SIMD vector types added to the Standard Library
Enhancements to String interpolation, adding more flexibility to construct text from data
Rust has taught me the value of result types. But if Swift also has exceptions then it's likely only 3rd party code will use results. No way they would break every stdlib API.
Rust has taught me the value of result types. But if Swift also has exceptions then it's likely only 3rd party code will use results. No way they would break every stdlib API.
Just in case anyone doesn't know, this is the fifth major (that is, backwards-incompatible) release of Swift in five years. Wiki page. Swift has a lot of nice ideas, but the fact that it is...
Just in case anyone doesn't know, this is the fifth major (that is, backwards-incompatible) release of Swift in five years. Wiki page. Swift has a lot of nice ideas, but the fact that it is terribly unstable scares off a lot of people, including yours truly. The funny thing is, Swift aficionados seem to constantly claim that “This time it's final”. I've read that Swift 3 is “the real Swift“. Then it was Swift 4. Then it was Swift 5. Maybe I am crazy, but I just don't feel like rewriting my whole code every year.
This too is what bugs me about Swift - I have some code at work that was written and compiled in Swift 2 (it's a React Native native module for RTMP playback), and I'm pretty much scared to my...
This too is what bugs me about Swift - I have some code at work that was written and compiled in Swift 2 (it's a React Native native module for RTMP playback), and I'm pretty much scared to my wits if I ever have to touch the codebase again since the last time I tried fixing a bug I had to wrangle hard just to get it to stick with Swift 2.x.
I have zero appetite to work in that kind of environment where the rug is constantly being pulled underneath me all the time. Maybe it's because I'm primarily a Java user and I'm so used to having APIs that either live for ages or have some sort of @Deprecated annotation to clearly tell when something is about to be killed off (and usually there is some sort of explanation in the JavaDoc about the alternative to use). I have rarely ever seen this in Swift and it is an absolute exercise in frustration, especially when my client is banging on my door asking why something isn't being delivered quickly enough.
Not really, I don’t really use an Apple computer generally (even though I do use an iPhone) so it would be a bit of a pain to get my hands on one to use as a development device.
Not really, I don’t really use an Apple computer generally (even though I do use an iPhone) so it would be a bit of a pain to get my hands on one to use as a development device.
Then you can probably go into a different language and reap greater benefits. Because not only do you need an iPhone (or I suppose any Apple device) to test but you also need MacOS with XCode to...
Then you can probably go into a different language and reap greater benefits. Because not only do you need an iPhone (or I suppose any Apple device) to test but you also need MacOS with XCode to even deploy anything. Any reason why you were attracted to Swift?
Swift is (at the very least) also available on Linux - it even has official Ubuntu packages - and doesn't need neither Apple devices nor XCode to be used. However, if you want to use Apples...
Swift is (at the very least) also available on Linux - it even has official Ubuntu packages - and doesn't need neither Apple devices nor XCode to be used.
However, if you want to use Apples toolkits for their devices, then yes, you need an Apple device. That is however not any different than for how it is for linux toolkits, windows toolkits and so on.
Also @cadadr I suppose. True It's why I was asking whether he wanted to do something with those devices. Just trying to give him the heads up. I tried Swift for a short time on linux. Like I said,...
Also @cadadr I suppose. True It's why I was asking whether he wanted to do something with those devices. Just trying to give him the heads up. I tried Swift for a short time on linux. Like I said, he can probably go into a different language and reap greater benefits, but if it's the syntax @IanS5 is attracted to like he said below, then there's no reason not to use it.
I just went through the guided tour, and I like the language! Is it used general purpose? As I said in another comment AFAIK it is possible to do so, but do people use it for non-Apple stuff...
I just went through the guided tour, and I like the language! Is it used general purpose? As I said in another comment AFAIK it is possible to do so, but do people use it for non-Apple stuff actually? Might wanna give it a try later. Tho I can't find it in Debian Testing.
Biggest changes:
Rust has taught me the value of result types. But if Swift also has exceptions then it's likely only 3rd party code will use results. No way they would break every stdlib API.
Just in case anyone doesn't know, this is the fifth major (that is, backwards-incompatible) release of Swift in five years. Wiki page. Swift has a lot of nice ideas, but the fact that it is terribly unstable scares off a lot of people, including yours truly. The funny thing is, Swift aficionados seem to constantly claim that “This time it's final”. I've read that Swift 3 is “the real Swift“. Then it was Swift 4. Then it was Swift 5. Maybe I am crazy, but I just don't feel like rewriting my whole code every year.
This too is what bugs me about Swift - I have some code at work that was written and compiled in Swift 2 (it's a React Native native module for RTMP playback), and I'm pretty much scared to my wits if I ever have to touch the codebase again since the last time I tried fixing a bug I had to wrangle hard just to get it to stick with Swift 2.x.
I have zero appetite to work in that kind of environment where the rug is constantly being pulled underneath me all the time. Maybe it's because I'm primarily a Java user and I'm so used to having APIs that either live for ages or have some sort of
@Deprecatedannotation to clearly tell when something is about to be killed off (and usually there is some sort of explanation in the JavaDoc about the alternative to use). I have rarely ever seen this in Swift and it is an absolute exercise in frustration, especially when my client is banging on my door asking why something isn't being delivered quickly enough.I’ve been eyeing swift for a while... maybe I should finally give it a try?
Do you want to get into
iOSI guess any sort of AppleOS development?Not really, I don’t really use an Apple computer generally (even though I do use an iPhone) so it would be a bit of a pain to get my hands on one to use as a development device.
Then you can probably go into a different language and reap greater benefits. Because not only do you need an iPhone (or I suppose any Apple device) to test but you also need MacOS with XCode to even deploy anything. Any reason why you were attracted to Swift?
Swift is (at the very least) also available on Linux - it even has official Ubuntu packages - and doesn't need neither Apple devices nor XCode to be used.
However, if you want to use Apples toolkits for their devices, then yes, you need an Apple device. That is however not any different than for how it is for linux toolkits, windows toolkits and so on.
Also @cadadr I suppose. True It's why I was asking whether he wanted to do something with those devices. Just trying to give him the heads up. I tried Swift for a short time on linux. Like I said, he can probably go into a different language and reap greater benefits, but if it's the syntax @IanS5 is attracted to like he said below, then there's no reason not to use it.
IIRC Swift is open source and ported to non-Apple OSes. So, at least in theory, it should be usable for general purpose programming.
Honestly just the syntax looks kind-of nice to me
I just went through the guided tour, and I like the language! Is it used general purpose? As I said in another comment AFAIK it is possible to do so, but do people use it for non-Apple stuff actually? Might wanna give it a try later. Tho I can't find it in Debian Testing.