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Apple Releases First Preview of Swift 3.0 (macrumors.com)
DaGoatSpanka quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple yesterday released the first preview build of Swift 3.0, a major update to Apple's open source Swift programming language. Swift 3.0's official release is expected to come in late 2016 after proposed changes are finalized. The Swift 3.0 preview can be downloaded from the official Swift website. There are versions of Swift 3.0 available for Xcode 7.2, Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 15.10. [Swift 3.0 is not source compatible with Swift 2.2 as it introduces source-breaking changes, but going forward, the goal is to make Swift 3.0 source compatible with future Swift language updates.] Swift 3.0 will likely be shown at Apple's upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
Now that we're seeing some real progress with making Swift a cross-platform language, I think it's time for Mozilla to drop their Rust project.
For those who don't know, Rust's home page describes it as "a systems programming language that runs blazingly fast, prevents segfaults, and guarantees thread safety." Well that sounds an awful lot like what Swift is!
While Swift has already seen major adoption and use in the real world, we haven't seen that from Rust. There have been a handful of projects using Rust, but that's it. And the ones that have used it, including the Rust implementation itself and Mozilla's Servo browser engine, have not been very impressive so far.
Despite lofty goals and a lot of hype, we haven't seen anything much of substance come out of Rust. Many have complained that it's an awkward language to use, even more than C++ is. Others have pointed out that C++14 and C++17 actually make much of Rust redundant. Yet others point out that Rust's safety guarantees are only as good as its implementation, which suffers from thousands of bugs despite much of it being written in Rust by the creators of Rust!
There was recent discussion about Google adopting Swift for Android. IBM has also taken an interest in Swift. Instead of continued failure with Rust, which is essentially a proprietary language at this point even if it's developed in the open, Mozilla should really consider using Swift, too.
It wouldn't just be better for Mozilla. It would be better for all developers. Swift is quickly becoming a universal language. The large number of developers proficient with Swift could contribute to Mozilla's code bases, rather than just a small handful of niche developers who know Rust.
Swift is the future. It's where software development is heading. Mozilla can do the sensible thing by getting rid of Rust and moving to Swift early on, or they can continue to waste time and effort on Rust. I sure hope they make the sensible decision! A modern web browser written in Swift would be much more useful than a web browser written in Rust.
Your argument makes no sense.
First of all, there's no such thing as "obsolete" knowledge when it comes to programming languages. This knowledge is very useful if you ever have to maintain code. And the newer knowledge typically builds upon the older knowledge.
Additionally, programming languages developed by open source communities or working groups suffer from exactly the same problem. Yes, when moving to a new version of a programming language we as programmers need to learn new things! It doesn't matter if you're using Swift or Java or C++ or Perl or Ruby or Erlang or Haskell or Lua or JavaScript or whatever other language you want to consider. It doesn't matter who developed the new version of the language. A new version of anything typically implies some learning will be involved!
It sounds to me like you want stagnation. Well, sorry son, but that doesn't fly when it comes to technology. Technology is always advancing. If you can't keep up, then you should drop out and find something else to do.
I write applications (big ones) for OS X using c and c++. Targeting 10.6.8, my code still works fine under 10.11 today. It ports to Windows easily as well. Re Windows, targeting XP, it all works right up to the current version of Windows. XP broke the OS windowing metrics, otherwise my stuff would still work with Win98. :) Apple hasn't done anything quite that stupid. Well, yet. 10.6.8 is where 64-bit code began to work; and it's the last OS X that supports PPC (my HP calculator emulation, bunch of audio drivers, my old mame (which is actually fairly important to me, because some of those games are my code, and code from close friends in the day, and I want that stuff to work as long as possible), all kinds of stuff in Appleworks, etc., etc. So 10.6.8 is where I planted my flag, so to speak.
Of course if you decide Swift or Objective C is your chosen coding mechanism, that's fine, but there's no externally imposed requirement that it must be your coding mechanism; at the worst, a few boilerplate intermediate layers based on basic OS APIs will do ya.
Sometimes -- for instance, with Apple's OS file dialogs -- the stuff Apple supplies is either broken, feature-poor, or both. After being bitten over and over by that stupid file dialog, I spent an afternoon and wrote my own. Which works a damn sight better, and faster, and with less hangups than Apple's does. My users benefit a great deal from my unwillingness to let Apple screw them with the bug-infested trail of tears they leave behind them as they blunder onwards into their new and shinier future.
Same thing for most (all?) of Apple and Microsoft's "new and shiny." For every new thing you decide you depend on in the OS, you're leaving users behind, and making your code more and more dependent upon Apple's latest whim.
Which, again, you can do, absolutely -- but you don't have to.
Almost every time I see some application that "requires" some fairly late version of an operating system, I think dark thoughts. There are few things, particularly things that are focused upon new features, where it is likely reasonable. But mostly... not. Mostly it's just thoughtless development where the user takes a back seat to... let's face it: "shiny."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.