Apple Doesn't Know If Swift Will Be Open-Source Or Cross-Platform

[blackout23]

Crapple

[meoow]

It seems these days everyone seems somehow obligated to come up with their own programming language. I must admit that I didn't like Objective-C syntax so maybe this one will be better.
Apple would be wise to make this open source and cross platform, even MS kinda of did that with C# via Mono. I guess it never really caught on outside of Windows development but still, it's even available on OS X as far as I know, should you want to use it.

I absolutely agree every word of droidhacker.
Objective-C has already been the rule to Apple as C# to MS. They are open-standard, you can code with them on any platforms as long as the compiler was implemented, but once you want to make serious applications, you are out of choice but being stuck with specific vendor's OS.
The emerging of Swift is not that Apple is generously providing a great language that benefits anyone using any platforms, instead it is forging the prison for developers even more solid.
I don't think Apple is gonna open source Swift, even if it will it's trivial. If someone else implements an alternative, there might be a hell of a lot of lawsuits against it by Apple, just like what MS did to Mono.

[Veerappan]

I don't think Apple is gonna open source Swift, even if it will it's trivial. If someone else implements an alternative, there might be a hell of a lot of lawsuits against it by Apple, just like what MS did to Mono.

Umm, which lawsuits against mono? Microsoft is trying to push the open-sourcing of .Net's various pieces to try to get it to be used more outside of Windows. If there's been any lawsuits, I haven't heard of them yet.

[shmerl]

Patent encumbered language not open from the start? No thanks - to the trash bin.

[Yorgos]

Then Apple needs to be encouraged to make it open source, because it's a really good programming language. It could take over. I would absolutely love to see C++ go away.

Of course it's not even fully released, so we don't know yet. They very well could open source it, and tbh it would surprise me if they didn't, but I think it still helps to encourage and push for it.

when programmers seize to exist, then c++ will disappear... along with C.

hobbyists can still play around with objC, C#, Java, Python, e.t.c.

Programming was not meant to be performed by everyone. It's like flying an airplane, you have to be a master in piloting in order to fly it with 100 people in the back.

anyhow, who cares if they oss it? it will probably be a total failure outside the iOS sandbox that crApple tries to jail everyone(and by everyone I mean, everyone that pays to be sodomized by Apple)
same thing happens with GO.

[sindex]

when programmers seize to exist, then c++ will disappear... along with C.

hobbyists can still play around with objC, C#, Java, Python, e.t.c.

Programming was not meant to be performed by everyone. It's like flying an airplane, you have to be a master in piloting in order to fly it with 100 people in the back.

when programmers seize to exist, then assembly will disappear...

hobbyists can still play around with c, c++, e.t.c.

Programming was not meant to be performed by everyone. It's like flying an airplane, you have to be a master in piloting in order to fly it with 100 people in the back.

[Pfanne]

when programmers seize to exist, then c++ will disappear... along with C.

hobbyists can still play around with objC, C#, Java, Python, e.t.c.

Programming was not meant to be performed by everyone. It's like flying an airplane, you have to be a master in piloting in order to fly it with 100 people in the back.

anyhow, who cares if they oss it? it will probably be a total failure outside the iOS sandbox that crApple tries to jail everyone(and by everyone I mean, everyone that pays to be sodomized by Apple)
same thing happens with GO.

could you elaborate what this has to do with go?

[erendorn]

when programmers seize to exist, then assembly will disappear...

hobbyists can still play around with c, c++, e.t.c.

Programming was not meant to be performed by everyone. It's like flying an airplane, you have to be a master in piloting in order to fly it with 100 people in the back.

Well, we still have assembly were it counts (more than 1% of the debian repos iirc), and the reason we try to remove further it is portability, not complexity.
The point can be more nuanced by saying that tools do not disappear because they are complex. C, C++, ADA are all languages difficult to master, but these difficulties exist to provide extended possibilities to the programmers, and mission critical/performance intensive programs are not going to disappear in the near future.

[jayrulez]

I absolutely agree every word of droidhacker.
Objective-C has already been the rule to Apple as C# to MS. They are open-standard, you can code with them on any platforms as long as the compiler was implemented, but once you want to make serious applications, you are out of choice but being stuck with specific vendor's OS.
The emerging of Swift is not that Apple is generously providing a great language that benefits anyone using any platforms, instead it is forging the prison for developers even more solid.
I don't think Apple is gonna open source Swift, even if it will it's trivial. If someone else implements an alternative, there might be a hell of a lot of lawsuits against it by Apple, just like what MS did to Mono.

What lawsuits are you talking about? MS never sued anyone for using Mono as far as I know.

[Nth_man]

In the majority of cases, this behavior is intended to fulfill precisely ONE objective; generating vendor lock-in.
If you use standard languages and standard libraries, building your software for a different platform is trivial. If you use OS-vendor specific languages and OS-vendor specific libraries, building your software for a different platform becomes almost prohibitively complicated and expensive, or requires extremely ugly hacks (like wine, for example, which never EVER works even close to well enough).

MS/C#/Mono are no different in this regard. They open source *some* of it, but only enough to trick developers into trusting them enough to actually use this. They (developers) then build against a whole bunch of MS-only libraries (because that is the only way to get things to *actually work*) and end up with software that is stuck to MS.

This is the ONLY reason that MS is still sales strong in desktop computers. So many people want to ditch MS for MANY reasons (usability, performance, security...), but have at least one PROGRAM that they need to use that won't work on anything besides MS. The vendor of that software surely would like to sell that customer a build for whatever OS they choose, but it is non-trivial to build it for that OS because they fell into the MS language trap.


*** I don't trust apple AT ALL. You shouldn't either.

And that was good information!