Re: Need for Swift
Re: Need for Swift
- Subject: Re: Need for Swift
- From: Alex Zavatone via Cocoa-dev <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 13:58:21 -0500
The push for server side Swift is interesting in that it embodies the
philosophy of moving Swift to other platforms/arenas.
Sent from my iPhone
> On Oct 15, 2019, at 8:57 AM, Turtle Creek Software via Cocoa-dev
> <email@hidden> wrote:
>
> This discussion about Swift vs Objective-C is interesting, but I think it
> omits something important. Both those languages only build apps for Apple
> products.
>
> It's not such a big deal for iOS. iPhones are dominant enough that people
> can write just for that. Phone/pad apps are also relatively small, so a
> rewrite for Android is not too difficult if you want to go cross-platform.
>
> For PCs it's a different story. Mac has about 10% market share overall, but
> it varies. In our market, architects are about 20% Mac, engineers less than
> 1%, construction maybe 2%. The apps are bigger and more complex. Nobody
> is every going to write a full CAD, project management or business
> accounting app in either Swift or Obj-C.
>
> TurtleSoft has a big investment in C++ source code that's full of
> construction business logic. Unfortunately, with the death of Carbon its
> future value is in doubt.
>
> I just checked a half dozen sites that measure popularity of programming
> languages. The Stack Overflow survey seemed the best, since they directly
> asked folks what they use. For 2019, their top 5 app-development languages
> are Python, Java, C#, C++ and C in that order. 42% of respondents use
> Python, down to 20% for C. Interestingly, there is a huge gap after that.
> Their next most popular app-dev language is Go at 8.8%. Swift rated 6.6%
> and Objective-C was 4.8%. Then there is a long, long tail of other
> languages with a few % or less.
>
> PYPL puts the top 5 in the same order. TIOBE index ranks them as Java, C,
> Python, C++, C#. Both those lists put Obj-C ahead of Swift, with the Apple
> languages well ahead of Go.
>
> Popularity is important. Those top few languages are frequently-used for
> reasons. Many people and organizations are working to improve them. High
> schools and colleges teach them. They have a wide range of books and
> tutorials. Good libraries and open source projects. Lots of blogs and Stack
> Overflow answers. Job opportunities. Success breeds success.
>
> I think it's fair to say that Python, Java and C++ deserve special respect
> because they dominate so much. Call them the "mainstream". I'm excluding C
> because it's more often used for low-level work, and C# because it's mostly
> limited to Microsoft's ecosystem.
>
> The minor languages certainly have their fanatics. Some have corporate
> sponsors. I'm sure Apple has fantastically talented and dedicated engineers
> working on Swift and Objective C. Both have many good features. But they
> are minority languages. It has an impact. We bought every book in existence
> about Objective C and Swift. Read close to everything we could find online.
> Looked at every archived post on this list. Built all of Apple's example
> apps. It still wasn't enough to help us finish a Cocoa conversion in time.
>
> Even worse, the future for Mac is starting to look like a required Swift
> front end to get new features (and maybe ARM compatibility). Using C++ at
> all means having Objective-C in the middle. It just gets too complicated.
>
> Yesterday I checked up on a few other companies we know who have Mac
> software in the AEC market. Most died off years ago. Two are now
> Windows-only. Three will have 64-bit apps "soon". So far, nobody is ready
> for Catalina yet.
>
> Casey McDermott
> TurtleSoft.com
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| | >Re: Need for Swift (From: Turtle Creek Software via Cocoa-dev <email@hidden>) |