
Swift should not be the future of iOS, and why TypeScript should. - sbjs
https://medium.com/@stevenbradleyconsulting/swift-should-not-be-the-future-of-ios-be54925074a5
======
chairmanmow
I write Typescript for a living, and stink at swift - I don't understand where
the author is coming from at all. Does Android support Typescript out of the
box? Why shouldn't it as well?

I bundle thing into cordova and bang, what was once Typescript is now running
sort of like a native app. You can make/get plugins for cordova that create
wrappers for native methods, although I'm less familiar with that, but pretty
sure you can expose things to the JS namespace using those techniques. Even
when I'm running my typescript stuff in the browser, it's still getting
transpiled before it runs there.

Not sure why Apple or Google would want to expose those methods via
Typescript, don't know why Apple/Google would encourage Swift/Java developers
to use Typescript when using Swift will create apps optimized for the hardware
with fewer abstractions in the way.

------
colonelrascals
Swift developers seem to like Swift, it ranks 6th in most loved language this
year
([https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#technology](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#technology)).

I really hate that JS seems to be the go-to "alternative" for everything.

~~~
sbjs
Swift is #6 on that list, TypeScript is #4. Swift is a completely new language
which has a big overhead to learn from start to finish, but JavaScript has a
lot of momentum and existing developers since it is already the lingua franca
of the front end of the web. Swift is evolving slowly, but JavaScript is
making very quick progress through TC39 during the same time span that Swift
was alive. Swift has ambiguous and biased leadership but JavaScript has a well
defined and established committee with members from major competitors who have
common interest in the language succeeding. TypeScript inherits a lot of these
benefits, as it intends to always keep up with the latest JavaScript standards
and specification.

~~~
colonelrascals
Swift is #6 on that list, TypeScript is #4.

 _This was meant to highlight that Swift developers don 't seem unhappy with
the language_

Swift is evolving slowly, but JavaScript is making very quick progress through
TC39 during the same time span that Swift was alive.

 _I 'm not sure this is a bad thing_

Swift has ambiguous and biased leadership but JavaScript has a well defined
and established committee with members from major competitors who have common
interest in the language succeeding.

 _I think this is a bit biased. Have you read Swift 's Community Guidelines? _
[https://swift.org/community/#communication](https://swift.org/community/#communication)

I don't really have a dog in this fight and would love some input from a Swift
developer.

I still claim that introducing JavaScript is not the solution.

~~~
sbjs
I did pick JavaScript as an opinionated suggestion. But really what I meant
was that a garbage collected, simple OOP, high-level language is much better
than a performance-based efficiency focused language when most of what you use
it for has no need for efficiency or high performance.

------
stiGGG
I don’t get this article. Should Apple make an ahead of time compiler for
Typescript and bridge it to Obj-C? What would be the benefit of using
Typescript instead of Swift?

------
chillacy
Give control of their primary dev language to others? Especially Microsoft? I
can’t see Apple doing that.

