Apple’s own marketing speak has Swift as a cross platform language. Just like, I suppose, C# is a cross platform language.
replyApple puts zero resources into making that claim reality, however.
Apple actually did put some resources behind it, the toolchain is reasonably pleasant to use outside macOS and Xcode, they have people building an ecosystem in the Swift Server Workgroup, and arguably some recent language design decisions don't seem to be purely motivated by desktop/mobile usage.
replyBut in the end I can't help but feel Swift has become an absolute beast of a multi-paradigm language with even worse compile times than Rust or C++ for dubious ergonomics gains.
A language is more than a compiler. All of the Swift frameworks you would need to do anything actually useful or interesting in the language are macOS-only. You cannot develop in Swift for Windows/Linux/Android the way that you develop in Swift for macOS/iOS. That matters.
replyYou don't need to convince me that Swift is poorly positioned there, but if you only care about server side (or possibly CLI) apps, the usable ecosystem on Linux isn't too shabby.
replyDoes it make sense compared to C#, Go, Rust or a JVM language? I don't know, but it's there, and Apple put some resources behind the initiative.
I think it is comparable to C#, at least C# a decade or more ago. Back then it was a great language for developing GUI applications on Windows, Unity games, and that's about it. Now there's a blossoming community of cross-platform frameworks, but only because Microsoft invested in making those first-class. Apple hasn't been putting that effort into Swift.
replyWas it Apple, or community driven projects?
reply> Just like, I suppose, C#
replyHave you actually used .NET on Linux/macOS? I have (both at home and work) and there isn't anything that made me think it was neglected on those platforms. Everything just works™
It didn't use to be that way, for a very long time.
replyIt's been 10 years of it running on Linux.
replyPeople here need time to notice XD
replyWhen it wasn't that way, they never had any marketing speak that suggested that though?
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