Apple Announces Swift 2, Open Source for iOS, OS X and Linux

[conradwt]

What does it mean to be "available for Linux"? Will it not work on FreeBSD too?

If you have the Swift 2 source and required compilers, then you should be able to compile and install on any platform. It will work out of the box for Linux but other Unix based operating systems may have to do a little more work to get things up an operational.

 

[wilhoitm]

This is no surprise at all and shows how immature Swift is right now. They cannot even support backwards compatibility.

I am sure they totally redid the compile pass models following their hokey syntax. Looking forward to an object code analysis between Swift 1 and Swift 2 with the same source code. My prediction is that we'll see a revision in Swift syntax by the time the inevitable Swift 3 comes by next year.

This reminds me of the use and abuse of the JVM in the early Java days where old code would break under updated RTCs and force new syntax on the developers.

If you want to play both sides of the street, avoid Swift like the plague. You will have enough issues with different library builds. Best is to have two separate projects in the same workspace. Build one project under Xcode 6 and the other under Xcode 7, share as much code as possible but keep seperate project settings. Any more advise and I start billing.

I don't agree! I wouldn't avoid Swift at all, I would embrace it! Maybe the people having trouble with it are just not good programmers? I have no idea what they are talking about! Also, it is hard to teach some old dogs new tricks! Don't believe all of the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)!

 

[AlecZ]

I don't agree! I wouldn't avoid Swift at all, I would embrace it! Maybe the people having trouble with it are just not good programmers? I have no idea what they are talking about! Also, it is hard to teach some old dogs new tricks! Don't believe all of the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)!

I've been using Swift since near the beginning. I converted a ton of old ObjC code to it. It's a nice language for the most part, but it's definitely not mature. It's missing some basic OOP support and lacks a lot of built-in functions you'd find in Python and such. There are even compiler errors that say "(some feature) is not implemented yet" when you try to do things like make class vars. Some things aren't broken, but they change with different versions of Xcode, so you have to keep updating your code. Seriously, I had to update my entire OS to get the new Xcode just to use the newer version of Swift so our code from other programmers on the newer Xcode would compile. And Xcode's Swift compiler is a train wreck all day every day.

This IS big news, but I don't see why anyone would use Swift outside Mac/iOS (yet). Also, I'm assuming all the "NS" libraries are going to be Apple-only, and if that's true, that would make it quite unappealing to non-Apple devs.

 

[CFreymarc]

I don't agree! I wouldn't avoid Swift at all, I would embrace it! Maybe the people having trouble with it are just not good programmers? I have no idea what they are talking about! Also, it is hard to teach some old dogs new tricks! Don't believe all of the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)!

It is not FUD.

It considers where in the world of software development you are. Again, I will state the Swift is an immature language that has a long road ahead of itself. Java and Python and even C went through the same tribulations.

It is first announced, the mavericks and ner-do-wells play with it like a dog in the street. Thus, you see what shape it is in and what tricks it can do. Then it is either taken home for refinement or left on the street. However, it is not a production tool right now. I know one buyout recently where the valuation of the company was decreased because one of their flagship apps was written in Swift. In another company, I know a guy that was fired who wrote an app in Swift when he was instructed not to use that language.

Have an academic or hobby project? Go for it. You have an app that is mission critical for a revenue stream, there is no way in hell I would touch it til the compiler and syntax has a lot more refinement and scrutiny out of an ivory tower.

 

[CFreymarc]

I've been using Swift since near the beginning. I converted a ton of old ObjC code to it. It's a nice language for the most part, but it's definitely not mature. It's missing some basic OOP support and lacks a lot of built-in functions you'd find in Python and such. There are even compiler errors that say "(some feature) is not implemented yet" when you try to do things like make class vars. Some things aren't broken, but they change with different versions of Xcode, so you have to keep updating your code. Seriously, I had to update my entire OS to get the new Xcode just to use the newer version of Swift so our code from other programmers on the newer Xcode would compile. And Xcode's Swift compiler is a train wreck all day every day.

This IS big news, but I don't see why anyone would use Swift outside Mac/iOS (yet). Also, I'm assuming all the "NS" libraries are going to be Apple-only, and if that's true, that would make it quite unappealing to non-Apple devs.

You are seeing the same things I have run into along with many others. It is an immature and incomplete language.

A young professional working in an immature language leads to very bad programming habits. The early C guys from the 70's / 80's cannot for the life of them break from K&R style or single-header-project rules since the early C compilers required it. To think of it, curious if you could write a command line app in Swift.

It has a long road ahead of itself. The fact it went open source tells me Apple does not want to devote any engineering money beyond administration and a build team where will not give a good return on investment.

Computer language development is rarely a completely commercial pursuit. Even IBM and ole Ma Bell went to universities to get some refinement on their programming languages. Sure a lot of higher degree thesis work will come from Swift in the next few years.

 

[CFreymarc]

If you have the Swift 2 source and required compilers, then you should be able to compile and install on any platform. It will work out of the box for Linux but other Unix based operating systems may have to do a little more work to get things up an operational.

Just a matter of time where Swift is ported to write Android apps!

 

[iFitzgerald]

An immature language on a nearly obsolete OS model.

You made me laugh...

 

[CFreymarc]

You made me laugh...

Thanks. The Microsoft party this opposite of Moscone will be its usual audacity and ignorant-of-self hosting.

 

[arkmannj]

First, I would recommend joining the Apple Developer Program and download the beta for Xcode 7. Next, you can start by learning the Swift Language using Playgrounds. Next, I would recommend referencing the http://raywenderlich.com site for many Swift tutorials. Last but not least, the tutorials on the site are all relevant for OS X 10.11 and iOS 9.

Just a side note, With the changes that Apple has made to the structuring of the Developer program, you no longer need to be enrolled as a Dev to download the XCode Beta. (v7)
https://developer.apple.com/xcode/downloads/
I'm sure you still need a paid account for some functionality (not sure if you need to register devices to test on,etc..) , but this would at the very least get someone the REPL, Playground and simulator(s) to practice with.

 

[JetTester]

You can already program in Swift for Apple, .NET, and Android platforms. Check out http://www.elementscompiler.com/elements/silver/

 

[gnasher729]

Why Swift 2 and it's open source?

Notice how they did not mention adoption rate of Swift. Those I trust have told me it's adoption level has been very low. I know one guy fried from his job using Swift due to the instability of the language leading to release dates.

They tried the high road academic PARC types to come up with a next generation language and they fell short. The elimination of header files created way too much combining overhead than anticipated. Also the amount of pushback for even inside Apple was more than anticipated.

Sure the open source community will run at this like starving lions on a fresh kill.

The changes made to Swift were quite trivial. I'd say less than a day work for a major project. But also, nobody forced you to upgrade from one Swift version to the next. Saying that the first versions were less good than the later ones would be reasonable, but the changes shouldn't be a problem for anyone.

 

[gnasher729]

What is the best way to learn Swift 2? I've got some experience with HTML and PHP.

Download Xcode, go to the iBooks store and download the Swift books, start reading, start writing code.

Just a side note, With the changes that Apple has made to the structuring of the Developer program, you no longer need to be enrolled as a Dev to download the XCode Beta. (v7)
https://developer.apple.com/xcode/downloads/
I'm sure you still need a paid account for some functionality (not sure if you need to register devices to test on,etc..) , but this would at the very least get someone the REPL, Playground and simulator(s) to practice with.

You can also now run apps that you have written on your own device, without paying.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Yes, he was fired for using Swift. MacRumors does not site their sources inside Apple. That affirms that I have no obligation to site mine.

But yes, Swift adoption has been very low in professional circles. About the only place it is used are manic hobby coding and academic environments.

Remember it took just over a decade for both Python and Java to catch on for professional use after first release. I expect Swift to take as long if at all.

Java came after Python and within 5 years it was a top language. SWIFT has been hovering around #20 - #23 on the TIOBE Index since last year.

 

[CFreymarc]

SWIFT has been hovering around #20 - #23 on the TIOBE Index since last year.

Many do not consider the TIOBE Index accurate as most commercial software source code is unpublished and confidential. Also, it does not work any metric weighing revenue generated of a specific software title or code base. Thus, you could have a thousand student projects using Language X but it has no economic value. It is a nice indicator for dipping your toe in the trends pool but it's no Dow Jones Index by a long shot.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Many do not consider the TIOBE Index accurate as most commercial software source code is unpublished and confidential. Also, it does not work any metric weighing revenue generated of a specific software title or code base. Thus, you could have a thousand student projects using Language X but it has no economic value. It is a nice indicator for dipping your toe in the trends pool but it's no Dow Jones Index by a long shot.

Many view Github as the immediate trends indicator....and SWIFT places just inside the Top 20 on that indicator... So... http://githut.info/

 

[nutjob]

The news would be big if Apple was trying to create a cross platform language and tool set, like what Microsoft is doing. But they are not. While someone might adopt Swift for their own platform development (like Linux) you are not going to get Google or Microsoft using Swift, well maybe Google, but I am still sure at some level Apple would forbid that from happening.

If Apple wanted wider adoption then they should have made Swift for Visual Studio on Windows. There is like 1000 to 1 more people developing on Visual Studio, including ALL the enterprise and professional development that is on that platform. But then Microsoft has already taken care of that with Visual Studio 2015 and Xamarin support to build native iOS apps right in Visual Studio.

In fact Microsoft will do more for Apple then Apple is doing for themselves by opening up Swift. Having millions of developers with access to native iOS development on Visual Studio 2015, including a new Visual Studio client for OS X, is already way more exposure then Swift has gained to date. I can easily see far more professional and enterprise apps being developed on Visual Studio, targeting all platforms, then Swift still being used largely to cater to proprietary development for iOS and OS X.

But, even among my friends that develop on OS X, iOS, they don't use Swift themselves, say its nice but years away from being great.

The big news was Microsoft offering native iOS developent on Windows with Visual Studio 2015. This will do more to open up iOS development to a wider core of developers then Swift will ever be capable of.

You act like the open source community, and third party developers, don't exist. I'm already programming in Swift on Mac, iOS, Windows, Linux and Android platforms, using third party tools, and being very productive. It's already reduced my development tasks by about 4/5ths. That's actual results today.

As for what MS might produce and what its limitations are, you've got a a pretty good crystal ball there, but MS isn't exactly known for quality software, first time, or even 5th time.

 

[AlecZ]

To think of it, curious if you could write a command line app in Swift.

Yup, you can. Not that I would.
(I read the rest of your comment and agreed but only quoted this part.)

 

[AlecZ]

Java came after Python and within 5 years it was a top language. SWIFT has been hovering around #20 - #23 on the TIOBE Index since last year.

Whatever it's ranked at, it certainly brings more profit than you'd get from Java, unless you're Mojang.

 

[CFreymarc]

Many view Github as the immediate trends indicator....and SWIFT places just inside the Top 20 on that indicator... So... http://githut.info/

Github? That is like watching a pick up basketball game at a public park and using that performance to predict the NBA draft. Neither are professional metrics.

 

[CFreymarc]

Yup, you can. Not that I would.
(I read the rest of your comment and agreed but only quoted this part.)

Don't know what is more pathetic. The fact you can do a command-line app in Swift or you bothered to find out.

 

[CFreymarc]

Whatever it's ranked at, it certainly brings more profit than you'd get from Java, unless you're Mojang.

Get the work while you can. I'm not cutting a check for a Swift developer for a long, long time.

 

[Ploki]

Apple is in control of Safari, which is the preinstalled browser on OS X and iOS, so Apple could add Swift 2 as a language that you use to write user facing code instead of JavaScript... with Swift being open source it would be possible for Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google to replicate it in each of their browsers, as well.

Am I jumping the gun or might this be why Apple would choose to open source Swift? I can't imagine why else Apple would bother with that, except that it allows for them to replace JS.

I really like that idea. It also makes sense, considering they replaced OpenGL with Metal.
They also ditched Google Maps for at that point inferior Apple Maps, looks like they're trying pull together all the loose ends.

I really enjoyed using Swift, playgrounds to test code etc. I started my next project using it and the amount of code I saved compared to Objective-C was considerable, and this was an audio sampling and conversion application using audio taps. But things got tougher and tougher with certain features relating to latency that were long winded using Core Audio via C turned into a hair pulling nightmare in Swift and I had to abandon it 3 weeks in. I restarted in Objective-C and managed to finish the project 2 weeks late. So, a lesson learnt. I hope that version 2.0 has improved vastly from my first experience.

It seems more and more people are adopting it based on the number of native Swift apps on the store.

Afaik, Obj-c isn't the best for audio, so i can imagine swift having the same downfalls. A lot of audio code (plugins, stuff like that) is still done in C++. Something about DSP being hard to implement in object oriented languages.

I'm a hobby programmer and an audio engineer, so take it with a grain (spoon) of salt.

 

[aaronvan]

OK, it's open source. So is Objective-C and Darwin. It's not like Swift will invade the non-Apple universe and replace Java, C++, and Python.

 

[aaronvan]

Why Swift 2 and it's open source?

Is Swift 2 the official name or are we just talking about v2.0?

 

[hyphz]

There actually already is a free version of Swift for Visual Studio and Windows development. It's just not from Apple; it's called RemObjects Silver. I don't know what they might change if Swift itself goes open source.