Apple Open-Sources Swift System, Adds Linux Support

[kpedersen]

if they can somehow wire up SwiftUI to gtk3, it would be a killer option for Linux.

Personally I am under the impression that having to wait for them (or anyone for that matter) to create bindings for you means you are probably using the wrong language or technology. Pick C or C++ and you can avoid all this time consuming bindings nonsense and be more self sufficient.

When it comes down to it, these companies are quite happy to leave you with a "no longer supported" product. My advice is don't give them the satisfaction.

[nadro]

IMO swift is just slightly more better than objective-c, but in objective-c we have c++ support and this is a step backward if we looked at swift. The most problematic is fact that an apple developers community is blindly fascinate about all apple stuff, I saw that at introduction of swift and metal api. At the "linux world" swift is totally useless, because we have good quality support for much better languages like c++ or rust.

[Alexmitter]

Nothing of value was gained, and if Apple removed support for that language again, then nothing of value was lost.

[Darkstar0129]

I think this is great that Apple did this. I see a lot of articles and whatnot saying that Apple is hostile toward open source. Truthfully, this just shows me that they "may" (before people want to attack me here, I am stressing the word MAY) be evolving. I myself have never seen Apple as hostile though. You look at Microsoft's track record compared to Apple's and Microsoft was always the "evil corporation". But I always told myself, yeah... Let Microsoft screw with us and we'll see if IBM steps in, quite literally... All they'd have to do is step... LOL. And please, no flaming me. I just really like seeing that Apple is doing this. I myself own a lot of Apple products and still have a laptop with OpenMandriva Lx on it (I love open source) and even a Windows gaming laptop. Everyone has their likes and I personally am not biased. I just love technology and believe every company (granted they don't act like Microsoft used to) can bring something great to the table if they just want to work together. All companies have their evil ways because it's about profits, but I love seeing how open source works... Someone has an idea, others have that same type of idea and they all jump in and work toward a common goal (for the most part). It's nice and I love how IBM pushes Linux so hard, I am a little biased toward them seeing as how I have a lot of relatives that worked for them and my first computer I ever used was a 1983 IBM Personal Computer. Anyway... Good for you Apple! I'm flying the "YAY Apple" flag for today!

[kpedersen]

IMO swift is just slightly more better than objective-c, but in objective-c we have c++ support and this is a step backward if we looked at swift.

I would never risk telling this to an Apple fan but I can honestly see Apple backtracking on Swift and going back to Objective-C. Not that Obj-C was particularly magical but for the simple fact that C can interface with the system and everything else natively without bindings. Processing C and C++ header files is an absolute must in todays systems development.

Yes, they might add a very simple C compiler into the Swift language itself (kind of like how Go-lang does it with the preamble stuff) but from what I can see with their work underlying all these fancy API's, they are sticking very heavily to Objective-C internally. Yes it could be because of the lack of bindings needed to connect to their UNIX-like underpinnings but my personal guess is that they know the future is going to remain C for many more years.

What I haven't seen them using internally is Objective-C++. Though I guess this is not too surprising because most of their stuff is either C or Objective-C. They don't need to interact with 3rd party C++ libraries at the lower levels. If I was to start a project intended specifically for macOS, I would almost certainly choose Objective-C++ from the start.

[pal666]

(hate it or love it, Apple store is a huge money maker)

afair average non-game apple store developer loses money. it's like casino is a huge money maker

, so if the language can provide all the niceties of Apple(like SwiftUI) in Linux equivalents whereas possible it should make very trivial to port Apple apps to Linux as well which can open very interesting opportunities for other projects.

android development is even more popular. and java exists on linux. not sure how it translated into apps porting

[Raka555]

Check out the language tour in the docs: https://docs.swift.org/swift-book/Gu...uidedTour.html

I had a quick peek at it and the syntax reminds me of nim.
Nim (https://nim-lang.org/) might be a better option for linux users as you don't have to wait for lot of stuff to be ported.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

IMO swift is just slightly more better than objective-c, but in objective-c we have c++ support and this is a step backward if we looked at swift. The most problematic is fact that an apple developers community is blindly fascinate about all apple stuff, I saw that at introduction of swift and metal api. At the "linux world" swift is totally useless, because we have good quality support for much better languages like c++ or rust.

They should have continued maturing ObjC and extending its features.

[jrch2k8]

Personally I am under the impression that having to wait for them (or anyone for that matter) to create bindings for you means you are probably using the wrong language or technology. Pick C or C++ and you can avoid all this time consuming bindings nonsense and be more self sufficient.

When it comes down to it, these companies are quite happy to leave you with a "no longer supported" product. My advice is don't give them the satisfaction.

i don't disagree since i'm a C++ dev myself but the benefit is still there if Apple wants it. Like i said love it or hate it Apple and swift are very good tools and could help a lot if there is actual feature equivalency.

I'm not saying drop Rust and C++ for swift but swift can be the next "Fast" python since is designed to be very friendly specially for GUI and layout handling.

As always right tool for the job

[reavertm]

[1] Just from a general glance over the language. Every time I tried to look up anything about Swift's features, all I got were general introductions to programming, which started feeling insulting, like the language community was treating me like a baby instead of just someone who was interested in a new language.

It was treating you like average Apple ecosystem wannabe developer clearly. You know, everyone (including non-programmers) hears here and there there is money from iOS apps, so they do want to cash-in. So do people who benefit indirectly.
Apple will obviously never opensource the GUI toolkit so it could be brought to different platforms, they just want to benefit from community efforts with maintenance of Swift System and are looking for naive people to help them out for free.