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iOS Swift Reaction
- Thread starter ArtOfWarfare
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I heard from inside that soon there would be a new program to develop applications for iOS. With this new program it would be possible to use the private frameworks as well.. Easier and more safe.
This been 3 weeks ago
I believe Swift is this program where the diagnostics team was talking about
So get ready guys!
This been 3 weeks ago
I believe Swift is this program where the diagnostics team was talking about
So get ready guys!
It seems so. And I'm glad they kept interoperability with Obj-C and even c (https://developer.apple.com/library...tml#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014216-CH8-XID_13).
So, been playing around with swift and read about 80 pages of the provided iBook.
not too bad in all honestly, much cleaner. Did have to use the apple provided code reference to see what the new methods are called and what arguments they take (as some of them are now not available in swift and alternatives are there instead).
I have a test app that communicates with a RESTful web service and have reproduced that app using ONLY swift and it works fine.
Will take some getting used to (especially ?Optionals) but will get there in the end.
not too bad in all honestly, much cleaner. Did have to use the apple provided code reference to see what the new methods are called and what arguments they take (as some of them are now not available in swift and alternatives are there instead).
I have a test app that communicates with a RESTful web service and have reproduced that app using ONLY swift and it works fine.
Will take some getting used to (especially ?Optionals) but will get there in the end.
Runtime. They show a "complex sort" against python & obj-c.
In both, a array can have any kind of object (so can mix string, numbers, views, etc) so a sort can't be optimized (if for example, all items are integer) so this slow the operation.
In swift, a array (and others) are more "typed", so a array can be declared to be ONLY integers and this allow the compiler + functions to optimize for this (and each similar) case.
Also, the productivity in development time must increase a bit: Less files to handle, less code to type, more safety, better use of the type system, etc.
Pretty excited about using SceneKit with it. Loaded up some of my dae exports from Verto Studio and it was pretty sweet!
Loaded up some of my dae exports from Verto Studio and it was pretty sweet!
Gearing up for the next wave of lawsuits?
It looks like swift-lang.org is not a commercial venture. It's a bunch of academics and government lab types. They aren't known for picking fights with Apple's lawyers.
And besides, anybody that writes a programming language that doesn't make me use semicolons and count brackets is on the right track...
I'm pretty excited about Swift and wrote my first app in it today. SwiftFonts lists all the fonts that are installed on the device. You can check out the source here to see how to override functions, show a table view, etc... https://github.com/roadfire/SwiftFonts
It really does say something when they've been going on about how "this is the year to learn how to code", and blah, blah, blah for years now, and Apple probably got millions of new wannabe programmers in one day.
The question that comes to my mind is will 'Swifter'
make it easier to make Mac - iOS cross compatible code.
I guess if we get stuck with A7 based laptops it will,
but frankly I really don't want that.
Also concerned it will make porting to non-apple even harder.
Maybe the goal?
make it easier to make Mac - iOS cross compatible code.
I guess if we get stuck with A7 based laptops it will,
but frankly I really don't want that.
Also concerned it will make porting to non-apple even harder.
Maybe the goal?
I know ! I have been doing the same thing.
I was pretty bummed at first but maybe it will be great and make it easier not to have to do the memory management,
fingers crossed ill be able to pick it up a little quicker now
ARC was introduced with iOS 4 (if I recall correctly) and pretty much eliminated the need to worry about most memory management. Why do you think it's still a hassle?
They aren't shutting off Objective-C. You'll likely even still need to know Objective-C for a few years as some 3rd party libraries might not be ported over to Swift.
It will not be easier or harder to make cross-platform code between Mac and iOS. There will still be a division in APIs.
It won't really make things harder to port from Apple to non-Apple, either. It was never the Objective-C part of the code that made it difficult to begin with. Again, it's all about the APIs.
Some people are just convinced there will be ARM Macs someday. I have never been able to figure out why they think this is true, or why they think it would be a good thing. I think it stems from ignorance of hardware in general.
I reckon ARM will happen in a Macbook Air for a few reasons:
Price - ARM chips are significantly cheaper than Intel chipsets
Timing - Apple designs their own ARM chips on their own schedule and would much prefer not having to rely on Intel's perpetual delays
Power - ARM chips can actually come pretty close to Intel's for casual (Web/Word/Excel/PowerPoint) usage but at significantly less power
Metal - The new Metal API is opening the door at creating extremely high performance code for Apple's ARM chips again at a lower power cost.
If Apple can produce a 11-13" Macbook Air that has 18+ hour battery life (of actual usage) by switching to ARM over Intel you can pretty much guarantee it's going to happen and as long as they port all of their apps and make it easy for developers to do the same they'll sell like hotcakes because user's care probably more about how long their laptop can go for on battery than a bit more power under the hood.
I've been reading this SWIFT book and so far it seems incredibly basic....almost painfully basic to me certainly in the first 100 pages or so. I am also reviewing the WWDC materials but maybe more on using Xcode with SWIFT is probably in order if they want new iOS/OSX dev to use it.
Price - Apple doesn't mind charging what they're charging. Even if it would be a savings, Apple couldn't charge what they are now and gain more profit. It would be more costs for them and their customers wouldn't want to pay anywhere near as much for the product.
Timing - I'm not convinced Apple cares enough. Timing is an advantage on mobile for them, but in the computer space they are competing against people using the exact same chips as they are. There's no downside to sticking to Intel.
Power - This is where you really lose me. The ARM chips in the iPhone and iPad are incredibly weaksauce compared to Intel chips. That's why they use significantly less power.
Metal - I still have no idea what to make of Metal, but I'm quite certain Apple has no interest in having anything like it on computers. I'm also quite certain nobody outside of mobile development wants yet another GPU API (and the ones on mobile probably aren't thrilled either). Apple created Metal as part of its holy war against Google in the mobile space, nothing more.
Really what you're asking for is an 8 year old laptop that costs slightly less than a modern laptop, and may or may not have more battery life. You're also asking for Apple to directly compete against Intel. That's not going to happen. Nor will Apple embrace the idea of being on a different architecture from everybody else, like in the PPC days. Or even worse, being on two different architectures on the same product line.
I'm learning objective c and I'm still pretty newbish at it. I've played around with Swift and the new Xcode beta and it seems pretty nice. I am going to put it back on the shelf and will continue to learn Objective C though, as I am in an online course for objective c and I doubt a course on swift will be available any time soon
That used to be true but now Universities will patent anything they come within 10 miles of. Nowadays universities can be pretty litigious. Gotta give their law school types something to do, right?
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Of course there's no downside to sticking with Intel, but there could easily be an upside to it. If Apple managed to make chips superior to Intel's, then Apple would be able to make computers better than anyone else, no questions asked.
Of course, since OS X already runs on Intel, Apple can play both sides of this: they can developer their own chips and use them whenever they're the best, and they can swap to Intel's chips whenever Intel has better chips.
Check out the Intermediate and Advanced Swift and LLDB WWDC videos. Lots more than just basic stuff.
What's seems to be missing are books and tutorials on using Swift with the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks to build full-sized apps (e.g. with SpriteKit, Metal, Core Data, UI Animations, AVFoundation, & etc.). Hopefully some book authors are already working on such (the Nerd Ranch guys already tweeted about their starting).
I've read about 100 pages of Apple's book so far and it's actually quite a pleasant read. Not at all boring if you are geeky enough. \o/