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Apple's Swift 4.0 Includes A Compatibility Mode For 'The Majority' Of Swift 3.x Code (infoworld.com)
An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld:
Swift 4.0 is now available. It's a major upgrade to Apple's Swift, the three-year old successor to the Objective-C language used for MacOS and iOS application development. The Swift 4 upgrade enhances the Swift Package Manager and provides new compatibility modes for developers. Apple said Swift 4 also makes Swift more stable and improves its standard library. Swift 4 is largely source-compatible with Swift 3 and ships as part of Apple's Xcode 9 IDE...
Swift 4's new compatibility modes could save you from having to modify code to be able to use the new version of the compiler. Two modes are supported, including the Swift 3.2 mode, which accepts most source files built with Swift 3.x compilers, and the Swift 4.0 mode, which includes Swift 4 and API changes. Apple said that some source migration will be needed for many projects, but the number of source changes are "quite modest" compared to many previous major changes between Swift releases.
Apple calls Swift 4.0 "a major language release" that also includes new language changes and updates that came through the Swift Evolution process.
Swift 4's new compatibility modes could save you from having to modify code to be able to use the new version of the compiler. Two modes are supported, including the Swift 3.2 mode, which accepts most source files built with Swift 3.x compilers, and the Swift 4.0 mode, which includes Swift 4 and API changes. Apple said that some source migration will be needed for many projects, but the number of source changes are "quite modest" compared to many previous major changes between Swift releases.
Apple calls Swift 4.0 "a major language release" that also includes new language changes and updates that came through the Swift Evolution process.
This is why I jumped off the Apple treadmill and stopped using their proprietary languages (yeah, I know the languages are technically open, but for practical purposes the languages change at their whim). When I need to write for iPhone, the meat of the code gets written in C or C++, which is stable (and has the added benefit of being portable to Android or anywhere else).
For the code which I write in Apple's languages, I use a simple subset of the language, trying to avoid features that are likely to be changed in the future. It makes me sad because there are some nice features, but I don't want to use them because the pain of rewriting code (for no reason) is worse than the benefit I get from those features.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I have a whole bunch of apps, going back years (ObjC). I have also been programming Swift since announcements.
I don't need no steenkin' compatibility modes; mostly because I tend to keep in my lane, and don't use too may shiny "tricks."
It took about five minutes apiece for me to fully (and buglessly) convert all my apps. More than 40,000 lines of Swift.
Several of the apps have already passed App Review, and are in the wild.
However, all you Apple haters can have all the fun you want, slagging Apple. I've been hearing the same lame shit since the mid-'80s. You ain't exactly blazing a new trail, here.