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Apple Swift Lead Discusses Swift 5 in New Podcast

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Apple is currently working on Swift 5.0, the next major version of its the coding language the company first introduced in 2014. As Apple prepares to release Swift 5.0, Ted Kremenek, who is leading the project, recently sat down for an interview with John Sundell on his Swift by Sundell podcast.

The new episode, titled "Pragmatic Priorities," is available to listen to starting today on iTunes and through the Podcasts app on iOS devices.

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Kremenek is Apple's senior manager of languages and runtimes, and he is overseeing the release of Swift 5 and is Apple's voice on the project.

In the podcast, Kremenek covers topics that include how Apple plans new features for Swift, the process by which pitched ideas turn into release features, and of course, Swift 5.

Swift 5's major focus is long-awaited ABI stability (Application Binary Interfaces), and Kremenek goes into detail on how ABI stability was ultimately implemented and what changes needed to be made for Swift to become ABI stable.

With Swift 5, apps created with one version of the Swift compiler will be able to interface with a library built with another version, something that is not the case now.

The Swift by Sundell podcast with Ted Kremenek will be of interest to developers and those who use the Swift language and want to learn more about the changes and features coming in Swift 5.

Tag: Swift

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Top Rated Comments

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Cosmosent
94 months ago
FYI, the Highest-Perf apps in the iOS App Store are (still) written in an mix of Objective-C & "C".
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
az431 Avatar
az431
94 months ago
Well swift makes it easy to rewrite Obj-C code piecemeal... I would not sit on decade old code... I would always learn form it and invest in modern code.
Code is not like milk. It doesn't go bad after a certain amount of time.
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IMHO, Swift is a colossal mistake. They should have continued improving Objective-C instead of indulging in what amounts to a compiler programmer's pet project.
That statement shows you know very little (nothing) about software development.

Swift reduces the time to create an app by nearly half, and reduces the complexity of the code. Swift code also runs faster than objective-c code, especially in math intensive functions. It also takes advantage of memory management functionality that is absent in Objective-C.

There is no way to "improve" Objective-C to make it equivalent to what Swift is today.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
M
mamcx
94 months ago
Developer here with 20+ years of experience:

FYI, the Highest-Perf apps in the iOS App Store are (still) written in an mix of Objective-C & "C".
What is the point of say this? Imply that swift is not for fast apps?

What does this mean for average Joe? Does that meant that more apps will get iOS release also (like Zbrush?) or something else? Sorry, coding is not my area of knowledge :)
For that, is necessary that Swift have a better support for non-Apple platforms. If I need to have something across many platforms is necessary to use a low-level lang like C/C++/Rust or a runtime like Java/.NET or similar.

This is certainly the biggest problem with swift, IMHO. I wish Apple get serious here and provide first class support for at least linux/windows of the core library:

https://www.reddit.com/r/swift/comments/8zb9y1/state_of_swift_for_androidlinuxwindows_on_2018/

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Is important to note than instead of
IMHO, Swift is a colossal mistake.
The colossal mistake is C/C++. Both of them are massive bugs-friendly, security-impossible piece of languages that are behind almost all the problems of crashes, weird bugs and security problems for decades now. Costing billons not only in damages but in the amount of time and effort required to workaround them.

The problem is that all the OS today are on top of the "C ABI" ie: Eventually you need to lower your hopes to whatever C can do, not matter how problematic. However, is possible to reduce the surface area and use a better language, like Rust or Swift for most of the tasks and only lower to C for compatibility or to access the vast ecosystem around it.

Swift, like Rust and others, are far from a mistake. Is what is necessary to move the industry forward. Stay forever with C/C++ is like stay with Cobol, but worse.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Frank Dalton Avatar
Frank Dalton
94 months ago
IMHO, Swift is a colossal mistake. They should have continued improving Objective-C instead of indulging in what amounts to a compiler programmer's pet project.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mdriftmeyer Avatar
mdriftmeyer
94 months ago
Well, both of those have many, many years head start on Swift. Not surprising. I'd like to see stats another five years from now. And perhaps a breakdown of apps that are older than 2014 vs new ones since.
That's not it. Swift has 40 years of OOA/OOD, Structural and Functional programming research behind it. They should have enhanced ObjC to go to 3.0, then 4.0 and dropped this idea from the start.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
G
Gobie74
94 months ago
Waiting for swift to have something like async / await. Nested callbacks are such a pain
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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