
Implications of New Apple Swift Language for Developers - sarah_woodward
http://stablekernel.com/blog/implications-of-new-apple-swift-language-for-developers/
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clayallsopp
> In fact, Swift is really built on top of Objective-C, somewhat similar to
> how Objective-C is built on top of C, and somewhat similar to how C is built
> on top of assembly.

Apparently, this is not exactly the case:

> not [Objective-C] under the hood so much as on the side. Swift has its own
> (relatively minimal) runtime. [1]

> Swift interoperates with the ObjC runtime. It's not dependent on it. [2]

I believe this means that one day Swift could drop the Objective-C runtime &
dependencies, perhaps in favor of a Cocoa evolution that doesn't rely on KVO,
selectors, etc.

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/475503398087708672](https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/475503398087708672)
[2]:
[https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/473848245047656449](https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/473848245047656449)

~~~
jcizzle
Little is known, but here is an interesting writeup on the topic:
[http://www.eswick.com/2014/06/inside-
swift/](http://www.eswick.com/2014/06/inside-swift/)

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melling
This is probably wrong:

"In all likelihood, Objective-C will be a primary language for writing iOS and
Mac OS X apps for awhile"

Swift should offer developers enough language/tooling improvements that it'll
be quicker to simply dive in. Playgrounds, for example, will help us iterate
quickly. Swift is easily added to an existing project, and you can release to
iOS7.

And yes, the Swift that you write in 18 months will be different than what you
start writing now, but it's going to be that way no matter when you start.
Might as well get on it.

~~~
ianstallings
Yes but I have projects that are huge, make a ton of money for the customer,
and are written in Objective-C. I'm not going to throw them out because Swift
came along. And a rewrite is out of the question. I need guys that can work on
those _and_ use Swift.

~~~
melling
Shouldn't be a problem for a couple of years. I imagine, however, since the
app market is so competitive, most people will crank out their new large apps
in Swift because they will have fewer bugs, and require fewer lines of code.
So, all the new guys will start with Swift.

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dhissami
Site down. Here's the cache:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:stable...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:stablekernel.com/blog/implications-
of-new-apple-swift-language-for-developers/)

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samuli
A professional developer should be able to take command of a new language in a
month. Usually learning the libraries takes longer.

~~~
joncooper
Exactly. In either case there's nearly 30 years of libraries to learn to be
effective on Apple platforms. (Significant traces of work done at NeXT remain,
which started in the mid-80s, I believe.) The language itself is the least of
your worries.

That said, I am excited about Swift because the hardest part of teaching new
developers to work on Apple platforms is the fact that you need to understand
C to write Objective-C.

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ctdonath
How many weeks until we start seeing job postings requiring "5 years
experience programming in Swift"? (Saw the same thing happen with Java just a
few months after it was publicized.)

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ianstallings
I agree with a lot of this. If you're on iOS you're going to have to know
_both_ Obj-C and Swift if you wish to prosper. Older apps aren't going to be
rewritten just for a new language and you'll probably have to work on those.
New ones will use swift and you'll need to know that too.

Not saying you can't get an app published using just swift. You can. But if
you want to be an iOS "expert" learn both, IMHO. The knowledge will pay
dividends.

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naland
I haven't seen here comments on Apple move yet, to take other's tm. 'Apple's
top secret Swift language'
[https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/comp.lang.fort...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/comp.lang.forth/0mEA2lSLiCE)

SwiftX™, SwiftForth™ they are FORTH, Inc. trademarks for many years. Go get
'em Liberal Lizzie!

