[HN Gopher] New GitHub Organization for the Swift Project
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       New GitHub Organization for the Swift Project
        
       Author : inickt
       Score  : 98 points
       Date   : 2024-06-10 21:10 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.swift.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.swift.org)
        
       | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
       | I really wish this now makes Swift worthwhile outside of the
       | Apple ecosystem. A bit like Go.
        
         | bsaul wrote:
         | That would be great indeed. I've sayed this a few times, but i
         | believe swift's only chance to become mainstream is now, and
         | only by growing outside of apple.
        
         | tmpz22 wrote:
         | It was talked about in the Platform keynote (not the main
         | keynote) - they're doing a lot of crossplatform work, off the
         | top of my head:
         | 
         | * 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)
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | Why would that make it more worthwhile? What are the compelling
         | reasons to use Swift instead of Go?
        
           | codetrotter wrote:
           | For example if you already know, and use, Swift because you
           | are an app developer who's been developing apps for iOS,
           | iPadOS, or macOS, then improved cross-platform support would
           | be very desirable.
        
       | bobajeff wrote:
       | >This change will allow Swift to expand its reach to more
       | platforms and use cases, sparking fresh possibilities and
       | broadening Swift's impact across the technology landscape.
       | 
       | How does having a GitHub organization tangibly impact the implied
       | goal of making Swift more impactful outside of apples devices?
        
         | NewJazz wrote:
         | Having non-apple members in the language organization in GitHub
         | seems like a nice improvement.
        
         | threecheese wrote:
         | It does sound a bit silly on its face; apparently the
         | repositories are in Apple's org which limits access to GitHub-
         | isms to members of Apple GH teams, and so it sounds reasonable
         | if their goal is to extend the community beyond those limits on
         | the GH platform.
        
         | sunshowers wrote:
         | Beyond the pure signaling value, I would imagine Apple has
         | internal GitHub tooling which maintains particular invariants
         | for repos hosted under github.com/apple. Those invariants can
         | potentially be relaxed or discarded altogether for a different
         | org much easier. (Special-casing particular repos within the
         | repos is technically possible, but (a) is harder and (b)
         | probably runs into policy issues with legal.)
        
         | talldayo wrote:
         | They're certainly wearing their heart on their sleeve there.
        
         | lima wrote:
         | GitHub org permissions aren't very granular, especially with an
         | org that is tied to enterprise SSO. Makes it hard to grant
         | certain permission to outside members.
        
       | tosh wrote:
       | They grow up so fast.
       | 
       | July 2010 started, June 2014 publicly released (!) feels like
       | yesterday.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_(programming_language)
        
       | songbird23 wrote:
       | hope this works out! i really wanna work with swift outside
       | xcode, i want it in vim
        
         | acedTrex wrote:
         | they showed swift in neovim in the keynote when they talked
         | about LSP support
        
         | mdhb wrote:
         | I got to be honest every time I look over to the Swift/iOS
         | development ecosystem I'm shocked at the amount of nonsense
         | they have to deal with.
         | 
         | - 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.
        
           | jshen wrote:
           | What does this have to do with swift?
        
             | mdhb wrote:
             | It's at the core of the ecosystem and has basically zero
             | other well supported use cases or successes to point to.
        
           | MBCook wrote:
           | > Documentation is barely existent
           | 
           | 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.
        
           | pudwallabee wrote:
           | The tooling(?) (starting with xcode) is quite objectionable
           | and is enough to drive people (me) away. The language choices
           | are well. Interesting. Kotlin fills the need for mainstream
           | Swift better than Swift, and without all the baggage that
           | Apple brings to the table.
           | 
           | 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.
        
         | pkos98 wrote:
         | there already is an lsp available (officially from Apple).
         | 
         | 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.
        
         | armchairhacker wrote:
         | Swift _had_ good support in JetBrains AppCode.
         | 
         | 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.
        
       | bla3 wrote:
       | Does this mean Swift will finally be built on top of public LLVM
       | instead of on top of Apple's fork of it?
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-10 23:00 UTC)