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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. Anything strongly typed and notably lacking in magic goddamn bullshit (Looking at YOU, Ruby) would be better than what we have now.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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.
I would much prefer to see them go with Swift.
I've dabbled with both Swift and Kotlin, and the Swift community is a much nicer one to deal with. The Swift community is a lot like the Python and C# communities. They're friendly, not too opinionated, and when they are opinionated it's because they're right. If you have a problem, they'll help you out and everyone's happy. They aren't there to tell you what to do or how to do it. They just try to help you do what you want to do.
I've found the Kotlin community to be more like the Rust, Ruby and Nim communities. There is a lot of cockiness, and they're way too opinionated, especially when their opinions are factually wrong so often. If you don't do things their preferred way, even if their way is the worst way possible, well you can just fuck off and die as far as they're concerned.
Maybe the difference has to do with the age of the participants. Those working with Swift, Python and C# tend to be older, more mature and generally laid-back. Those working with upstart languages like Kotlin, Rust, Ruby and Nim tend to be young, angry, passive-aggressive, and perhaps impotent.
If I were developing for Android, I'd much rather deal with the Swift/C#/Python type of community than the Kotlin/Rust/Ruby/Nim type of community.
I hope they don't intend to run Swift on their JVM.
What makes Swift so performant is that it lacks a tracing garbage collection. It only uses reference counting. Reference counting is a kind of garbage collection, but it doesn't by itself detect cycles. It's the cycle detection that is costly in languages like Java or Python (which uses reference counting along with a tracing collector for cycles.) People argue that cycle detection is cheap, especially in generational GCs. But the generational assumption presumes too much. Likewise when passing references between threads. Cross-generational (yet temporary) and cross-thread value passing can happen often. (See, e.g., MoarVMs problems.)
Plus, tracing collectors often need 2x RAM to be performant. Again, people wave away that requirement by arguing RAM is cheap and plentiful. But that assumption is broken all too often, as well, _especially_ on embedded devices.
So Swift offers both lower latency, more consistent latency, and requires fewer CPU and RAM resources. The cost is that you have manually break cycles, otherwise you'll leak memory. But tracing collectors don't fix all leaks, either. It's common to "leak" memory through caches. Some languages provide ephemerons (e.g. ephemeron tables in Lua), a special reference type that is more semantically powerful than, e.g., weak references, and provides the necessary hints to the tracing collector. But it's still something you must explicitly declare. And the Big-O complexity of ephemerons is pretty bad, so it can degrade performance significantly if there are lots of cycles passing through the ephemeron.
compile it to JavaScript for deployment
I have officially lived too long.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Poorly.
The browser developer tools actually support source "map" files that allow you to step through the source - it's already used in the case where you concatenate and minify multiple javascript files into one
compile it to JavaScript
That word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Google has put a ton of effort into Go, why not add that as a first class language as well?
I suppose Go/Java syntax are "close enough" at a high level. But kotlin? There are only so many ways to shuffle C & Pascal syntax before everyone is dazed and loses interest.
I think it actually does. At one point CDC was contemplating a machine that was going to use APL as the assembler language, to which other languages would need to compile if they were to run as native. So JavaScript can define a virtual machine that can be compiled to.
Now whether that's a good idea is a different question.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
perhaps there's a better term for this process?
Kludging
Webbing
Derping
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
On GNU/Linux, you can use whatever langage you want as long as it supports the C calling conventions, and most of them do. Same thing for oldschool Windows and pretty much every system running native code.
Why should a platform be tied to a particular language?
Why do you hate YACC?
You're an idiot. A compiler takes code written in one language and translates it in to code written in another language. That the source and target languages are typically a high-level language and a machine language is irrelevant.
Find yourself a copy of the dragon book. It's right there at the beginning.
Kids these days...
Apple open sourced the language. They did NOT open source UIKit, CoreAnimation, etc. Many iOS devs are Android devs as well. While this will allow for a common language between the UI and the shared C++ code, the UI code will still be platform specific.
Hold on.
Before I can parse your expression, I must first derp the statement into javascript.
Web scale, bitches!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
You are describing asm.js. It's scary, and amazing at the same time.
Isn't this it?
It's already open source and it already runs well on Android. What do they think they'll gain by doing a bunch of work to use Swift?
I frankly think this is most likely just an attempt to bring attention to Swift.
It's hard to imagine Google switching to it, to say the least.
I'd argue that they also need to learn the history of computing and networking as well as the physical components (how they actually work - physically) and the basics of safe hex. I'd say that those are just as essential as any use is at this point in time. A good grounding in real computer science should actually cover the science of computing, no? They should actually know that what they're using is a tool and, like all tools, it should be operated both with skill and safety. In order to do that, one needs to truly understand the reasons that things are the way they are.
Beyond that, or along side that, they could learn the software aspects that you're suggesting. However, learning to program is not learning computer science. Learning to program does have value but that would be greatly improved by actually having a healthy dose of computer science so that they can tie it all together. If we just want cheap code monkeys, we can go buy those. If we want people who are actually skilled, we have to teach that.
I think that one, without the other, is not nearly as valuable as both of them combined. Someone who understands what ring 0 is actually might understand why code that doesn't race is imperative. Someone who understands the history, will know what mistakes have been made and learn from them. Someone who has an understanding of the networking, how it physically works, might actually be able to code with security in mind. Someone who knows the actual physical aspects of memory will understand that buffer overruns are bad - and why. Then, they will know who, what, when, where and how they worked to avoid them. They'll understand what sanity checking actually means and why it's essential.
And those that can't? Well, someone's gotta work help desk, manage, and be QA.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
And if they can't do any of those, they become UX designers.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Google has, how many languages that they developed themself available they can use?
But still they would pick a language, not developed themselves, but by a competitor.
And they would do this why? Because they didn't learn from the whole Java debacle?
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
This has all the smell of a response to Microsoft's purchase of Xamarin. By extending their reach, Google is attempting to diminish the effect C# may have on their ecosystem.
I know that Go is being pitched as a systems language - but surely it would be easier for Google to do the work necessary to switch to Go and improve it than use Swift.
Based on my (brief) look at Swift it seems to me that they have tried to be too clever by half - throwing everything in to it. Love or hate Java, C, Go - they have the benefits of being clean and simple languages.
Cannot unread: http://zaa.ch/jison/docs/