New GitHub Organization for the Swift Project
swift.org
swift.org
How does having a GitHub organization tangibly impact the implied goal of making Swift more impactful outside of apples devices?
July 2010 started, June 2014 publicly released (!) feels like yesterday.
- Xcode is terrible
- Documentation is barely existent
- you can’t really reuse your code in any other context
- you have to pay them money to even release your software
- they steal 30% of your revenue
- they reserve the right to shut you down at any point, for any reason and provide almost zero recourse.
I get why people had to use it historically but it seems like a really bad choice to try and build any kind of reliable future on top of in 2024.
Depends on the thing. And there is a large community with examples online, which helps.
> you can’t really reuse your code in any other context
Not everyone cares. If I’m only targeting an iOS app the fact the code doesn’t run on Android or Windows isn’t a problem for me.
> you have to pay them money to even release your software
On Apple’s App Store, sure. Or if you want your stuff signed. If you want to release open source or don’t mind shipping unsigned stuff it’s free free free.
> they steal 30% of your revenue > they reserve the right to shut you down at any point, for any reason and provide almost zero recourse.
Only if you’re in their App Store or want your stuff signed.
> I get why people had to use it historically but it seems like a really bad choice to try and build any kind of reliable future on top of in 2024.
The bargain is the same as it ever was. I’m OK with it. I made stuff in Xcode for my Mac just for me for a long time without hassle or paying a cent. The costs only cost if you want to distribute pre-built binaries to others.
> Only if you’re in their App Store or want your stuff signed.
I'd buy that one if installing something from outside Apple's App Store was just like in Windows, downloading an installer package and running it (which AFAIK it is for Mac, but not for iOS). And similarly to the signed stuff: not sure about modern Windows as I ran away from it a while ago, but last time I used it (Win 7) if the installer wasn't signed you could just install it anyway with a single click. Say those two things aren't capped on iOS or Mac, then yes, your rebuttal is valid.
But if "you" (Apple) change the rules of the game of how traditional installers have always worked, over the years making those two things de facto mandatory, then later you cannot claim in your right mind "hey but if you want to make your software impractical to use, you're free to do so!"
If it does it’s $100 bucks a year, no matter how many things you develop and how many users you have. That doesn’t seem too bad to me.
Avid denialists like you make me glad antitrust works. It is in fact "bad" to create an artificial pipeline of demand and then manipulate the pressure by excluding profitable competition. You might argue you're entitled to that pipeline if you own it, but that doesn't protect you if you use it for anticompetitive purposes. Microsoft found this out a while ago, when they were threatened with a breakup if they further abused their monopoly position.
Apple spent 10 long years refusing to renegotiate their asinine, arbitrary rules until the government stepped in. In that time, an uncountable amount of market damage has been caused by Apple's protectionist policy and can't be ignored simply because it works for some people. Apple is in the wrong, and they know it; that's why they're accepting their fate instead of fighting for their right to continue abusing their App Store privileges forever.
If you want to see what open source Swift is going to end up like, just look at GNU objective C. It will likely follow the same pattern of adoption over time and be hobbled on non-Apple platforms.
C# is great, Node/TypeScript is passable, have heard good things about Go, Java is Java, Python is good for AI/data stuff, and I’ve heard good things about Kotlin. Also Flutter is an option.
There are quite a few options
Tried it out a month ago (on Linux using neovim) and the autocompletion was on par with golang lsp in terms of speed. Didnt check the lsp capabilities though.
Maybe it still does, but probably not, because AppCode was sunsetted at the end of 2022 and stopped receiving updates in 2023 (https://blog.jetbrains.com/appcode/2022/12/appcode-2022-3-re...). Which is really unfortunate.
If Swift ever gets good support outside of Apple, I wouldn’t be surprised if JetBrains starts working on their Swift plugin again and releases it for IntelliJ and CLion. But despite this migration, my understanding is that Swift on Linux and the new Foundation (non-Apple standard library) is still lacking.
I loved AppCode because I could go into a clients iOS app and the linter would immediately show so many problems that were easily fixable but Xcode would never show. I was sad to see it go.
https://www.swift.org/getting-started/library-swiftpm/
† The doc is about building a library, but building an executable works the same.
As an iOS developer I’ve been getting into some firmware stuff on ESP-32. It’s my first time writing C++ and while it’s been better than I expected, I really miss Swift and especially the safety it brings.
* Enhancement of VSCode support (and any editor that integrates LSP)
* Increasing supported linux and windows platforms
* Increasing support for constrained environments (embeded? dunno)
* Continued support of community products like Vapor (web framework)