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Google May Adopt Apple's Swift Programming Language For Android, Says Report (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google has plans to make Apple's Swift object-oriented language a "first-class" language for Android, reports The Next Web. The publication, citing sources, adds that Google doesn't mean to replace the current first-class language for Android -- Java -- at least, "initially." Google sees an "upside" in using Swift, which Apple made open source last year. But a ton of things need to fall into place for this to work. From the report, "All told, Google would have to effectively recreate its efforts with Java -- for Swift. If the company is motivated enough, it's very possible to do so without compromising on its open source values or ruffling any developer feathers along the way." The company is also discussing internally about making Kotlin as a first-class language for Android. "Unlike Swift, Kotlin works with Android Studio, Google's IDE for Android development. Unfortunately, sources tell The Next Web that Google's current mindset is that Kotlin is a bit too slow when compiling."
Damn it Google, just pick a fucking language already and make it an option as an alternate to Javascript on the browser.
I thought the trick for web browsers was to pick your own favorite fucking language, and compile it to JavaScript for deployment? Then every programmer can use whatever language he/she prefers, rather than everybody having to use the same language.
Of course, this article isn't about web browsers, it's about application development.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Uhhhh, are you serious?
The community will develop the libraries you use. You'll want to use libraries developed by a community that cares about doing things right, providing proper releases of these libraries, and maintaining them over the long term. Swift, Python and C# are good communities for this. Rust, Ruby and JavaScript are not. The Rust, JavaScript and Ruby communities just shit out partially-done libraries over a weekend, throw them on GitHub without any sort of formal releases, and then forget about them.
The community will also help discover and document the best practices for using the language. This collective knowledge will do far more to help make the language efficient and effective for everybody to use. Anyone who is a lone wolf will waste a lot of time rediscovering what the community found out much earlier.
The community also influences the direction the language will take. We see the Python, C# and Swift communities continually improving their languages. On the other hand, we see communities like Rust and JavaScript constantly spinning their wheels, since their "best practices" change every other day. That's why it took forever to get Rust 1.0 out, and it's also why JavaScript is only now getting proper class-based OO, 20 years after it was created!
Programming language communities are very important. The last thing any programming language user needs is to deal with a community like the Rust community, where they often treat you like dirt.
Poorly.
Android Studio first.
All the open talk is so false.
The JVM exists because Sun assumed Java would be running in very different devices without a proper OS and without ready access to a native compiler. None of these things hold true today. So the JVM is essentially just a layer of cruft slowing down your app. Android nowadays compiles the app into native code and modern JVMs compile at run time. So let's get rid of the JVM.