The Past, Present and Future of Swift
Voxxed Belgrade @chrischinch
My Apple Adventure
The Past of SwiftObjective-C
Score Card+ Thin Runtime
+ Leverage GCC and Libraries
+ Low barrier to entry (At the time)
- Larger than C / C++
- Namespace support
- Optimisation
- High barrier to entry (Now)
- Closed Source
The PastRelease
–Not everyone is a fan…
“Type a quote here.”
2.2+ Apache License 2.0December 3, 2015
The Present
What’s Included?
• Compiler
• Standard Library
• SDK Overlays
• Debugger
• Package Manager
Who’s using it?
• Libraries (Alamo, Vapor, Perfect etc)
• Swift AI
• Duolingo, Dub Smash, EyeEm*
• Pandora, Twitter, FitBit, Groupon
Installation - MacOS
swiftenv install 2.2
Installation - Linux
sudo apt-get install clang libicu-dev wget https://swift.org/builds/swift-3.0-release/ubuntu1404/swift-3.0-RELEASE/swift-3.0-RELEASE-ubuntu14.04.tar.gz
tar -xvf xxx.tar.gz
export PATH=~/swift-3.0-RELEASE-ubuntu14.04/usr/bin
Compile & Run
swiftc helloworld.swift ls -al ./helloworld
The Future…And maybe some of the present
Server-side Swift• REST
• JSON
• Cookies
• Database connectors
• Web Servers
• Templates
And there’s more…
• Vapor - RoR for Swift
• Kitura - IBM
Tools, tools, tools
• Package Manager
• swiftenv
• http servers, markdown parsers, connectors…
The Future…Maybe
In Theory…
• Leverage NDK
• Generate an object file from the LLVM-IR
• Package that object file in an Android app (Likely C)
• Pack in a Shared Library and run
• The future…? (Search if you really want to)
Swift for Windows
• github.com/tinysun212/swift-windows
• swiftforwindows.codeplex.com
• Microsoft Visual C++ and Cygwin binaries
• No UI or platform libraries (yet)
Score Card+ Type, generics, optionals, chaining, Protocol-oriented
+ Simple(ish) and clean(ish)
+ Memory management
+ Big backer
- Support (Docs, Tools)
- Fast development*
- www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-said-swift-better-than-objective-c-willie-shi
Yet to come
• Even more stable ABI
• Platform independence
• Better C++ compatibility
• General stability
• Concurrency
Thanks!Chris Ward @chrischinch Contentfulgregariousmammal.com
I have stickers and merchandise!
