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Groups > comp.sys.mac.system > #76592 > unrolled thread

What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source?

Started byAlan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca>
First post2015-06-14 10:00 -0400
Last post2015-06-19 00:39 -0700
Articles 11 on this page of 31 — 14 participants

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Contents

  What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-06-14 10:00 -0400
    Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? nospam@ab-katrinedal.dk (Niels Jørgen Kruse) - 2015-06-14 18:54 +0200
      Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> - 2015-06-14 13:41 -0400
        Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-14 14:01 -0400
          Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> - 2015-06-14 22:16 -0400
            Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-14 23:05 -0400
              Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> - 2015-06-15 02:05 -0400
                Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-15 02:09 -0400
        Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Calum <com.gmail@nospam.scottishwildcat> - 2015-06-15 12:05 +0100
    Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Tim McNamara <timmcn@bitstream.net> - 2015-06-14 19:49 -0500
      Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-06-15 10:05 -0400
    Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Doc O'Leary  <droleary@2usenet2014.subsume.com> - 2015-06-15 14:15 +0000
      Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-06-15 16:29 -0400
        Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Doc O'Leary  <droleary@2usenet2014.subsume.com> - 2015-06-18 05:53 +0000
      Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2015-06-16 09:15 +1200
    Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Electric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid> - 2015-06-15 08:08 -0700
      Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-06-15 16:31 -0400
        Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Don Bruder <dakidd@sonic.net> - 2015-06-15 16:48 -0700
          Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-06-15 20:36 -0400
          Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Electric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid> - 2015-06-16 08:02 -0700
        Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) - 2015-06-17 13:19 +1200
          Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> - 2015-06-17 08:40 -0400
          Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Electric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid> - 2015-06-17 08:17 -0700
            Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) - 2015-06-18 13:30 +1200
              Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Electric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid> - 2015-06-18 09:46 -0700
                Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2015-06-18 17:01 +0000
                Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) - 2015-06-19 12:35 +1200
    Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Siri Cruz <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> - 2015-06-18 17:53 -0700
      Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) - 2015-06-19 17:59 +1200
        Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Siri Cruz <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> - 2015-06-18 23:19 -0700
      Re: What make you of Swift 2 being Open Source? Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrie@pixelmemory.us> - 2015-06-19 00:39 -0700

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#76715

Fromdempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)
Date2015-06-17 13:19 +1200
Message-ID<1m65wav.1k4pzq31kha9clN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>
In reply to#76672
Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:

> On 2015-06-15 11:08, Electric Comet wrote:
> > On Sun, 14 Jun 2015 10:00:13 -0400
> > Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:
> >
> >> declaration that Swift would be Open Sourced (OS X and Linux) struck
> >> me as ... odd. Not that it's being made open but that the extent of
> >> that is limited to OS X, iOS and Linux (Android too by extension, I
> >> suppose).
> >
> > how does one limit open source
> 
> By not including libraries to the underlying OS.
> 
> By license limitations.

Swift will presumably be licensed on the same basis as LLVM and Clang
(open source with on a BSD-like licence), since it has the same
developer and is part of the same toolchain family.

Apple have said they will be releasing Swift as open source, and Apple
will be supplying iOS, OS X and Linux versions.

For Linux, that implies Apple will be doing work such as creating
libraries and converting header files so that Swift can support a
reasonably full set of features on Linux, at least for the Linux
distributions Apple chooses to support.

Other Linux distributions may require third party work to adapt Swift,
and there is the question of how far Apple goes with its port, e.g. just
text-based applications with POSIX APIs, or going as far as full support
for writing GUI applications?

Android or Windows would require someone to do a lot of work to get
Swift up to a reasonably full feature set and API support. Apple didn't
say they would be doing that.

Anyone who felt like it could port Swift to Windows, but it makes most
sense for Microsoft to do it and fully support it in Visual Studio. At
their Build conference, Microsoft dropped a hint that they will be doing
that at some point.

I haven't heard anything saying Google would do an Android port, but
that would make more sense than a third party port.

I'm curious to see what form the open source Swift compiler takes.
Presumably the early versions will be written in C to allow building on
top of existing infrastructure and ease porting, but will it also
include a Swift compiler written in Swift?

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

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#76726

FromAlan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca>
Date2015-06-17 08:40 -0400
Message-ID<1aGdnSUaOag-9xzInZ2dnUU7-LOdnZ2d@giganews.com>
In reply to#76715
On 2015-06-16 21:19, David Empson wrote:
> Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:
>
>> On 2015-06-15 11:08, Electric Comet wrote:
>>> On Sun, 14 Jun 2015 10:00:13 -0400
>>> Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>> declaration that Swift would be Open Sourced (OS X and Linux) struck
>>>> me as ... odd. Not that it's being made open but that the extent of
>>>> that is limited to OS X, iOS and Linux (Android too by extension, I
>>>> suppose).
>>>
>>> how does one limit open source
>>
>> By not including libraries to the underlying OS.
>>
>> By license limitations.
>
> Swift will presumably be licensed on the same basis as LLVM and Clang
> (open source with on a BSD-like licence), since it has the same
> developer and is part of the same toolchain family.
>
> Apple have said they will be releasing Swift as open source, and Apple
> will be supplying iOS, OS X and Linux versions.
>
> For Linux, that implies Apple will be doing work such as creating
> libraries and converting header files so that Swift can support a
> reasonably full set of features on Linux, at least for the Linux
> distributions Apple chooses to support.
>
> Other Linux distributions may require third party work to adapt Swift,
> and there is the question of how far Apple goes with its port, e.g. just
> text-based applications with POSIX APIs, or going as far as full support
> for writing GUI applications?

I see baling wire and paste of various sorts coming out to bridge that gap.

>
> Android or Windows would require someone to do a lot of work to get
> Swift up to a reasonably full feature set and API support. Apple didn't
> say they would be doing that.
>
> Anyone who felt like it could port Swift to Windows, but it makes most
> sense for Microsoft to do it and fully support it in Visual Studio. At
> their Build conference, Microsoft dropped a hint that they will be doing
> that at some point.

Interesting.

>
> I haven't heard anything saying Google would do an Android port, but
> that would make more sense than a third party port.
>
> I'm curious to see what form the open source Swift compiler takes.
> Presumably the early versions will be written in C to allow building on
> top of existing infrastructure and ease porting, but will it also
> include a Swift compiler written in Swift?

One sign of a successful compiler (not just technically but as accepted 
in the dev community) is a version that can compile itself.

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#76731

FromElectric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid>
Date2015-06-17 08:17 -0700
Message-ID<mls3b9$fk1$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#76715
On Wed, 17 Jun 2015 13:19:52 +1200
dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:

> Swift will presumably be licensed on the same basis as LLVM and Clang

i presume that presumably is used when avoiding assume
what is llvm/clang license

i hear all the kids are using public domain when forced or nothing at all

> For Linux, that implies Apple will be doing work such as creating
> libraries and converting header files so that Swift can support a
> reasonably full set of features on Linux, at least for the Linux
> distributions Apple chooses to support.

multiple versions ios, osx, linux and then again multiple linux versions
sounds like a recipe for a support nightmare

it sounds ill conceived but maybe i am missing something
maybe adhoc is a better description

> their Build conference, Microsoft dropped a hint that they will be
> doing that at some point.

talk is cheap
hints are even more economical


> I'm curious to see what form the open source Swift compiler takes.
> Presumably the early versions will be written in C to allow building
> on top of existing infrastructure and ease porting, but will it also
> include a Swift compiler written in Swift?

i don't know anything about swift except what i glean here
it sounds like swift is akin to Qt










 

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#76747

Fromdempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)
Date2015-06-18 13:30 +1200
Message-ID<1m67qvm.67zvzsyy111N%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>
In reply to#76731
Electric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid> wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Jun 2015 13:19:52 +1200
> dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
> 
> > Swift will presumably be licensed on the same basis as LLVM and Clang
> 
> i presume that presumably is used when avoiding assume
> what is llvm/clang license

I said that in the next line, which you snipped. If you want to know
more, do a Google search for LLVM, or read its Wikipedia page.

> i hear all the kids are using public domain when forced or nothing at all
> 
> > For Linux, that implies Apple will be doing work such as creating
> > libraries and converting header files so that Swift can support a
> > reasonably full set of features on Linux, at least for the Linux
> > distributions Apple chooses to support.
> 
> multiple versions ios, osx, linux and then again multiple linux versions
> sounds like a recipe for a support nightmare

No different to other programming lanaguages like C: each platform needs
platform-specific libraries and header files, to support implementation
features unique to that platform.

All that work has already been done for C, and is maintained on each
platform, by those who are responsible for the platform.

A new programming language has to replicate or convert all that existing
work, and those changes need to be maintained for future updates to the
platform. Apple is saying they will do that part, at least for iOS, OS X
and an as yet unspecified subset of Linux distributions.

The Swift compiler will probably have the same source code on Linux, OS
X and iOS. It may need changes to work on Windows.

I haven't looked into development tools on Linux beyond simple use of
compilers on the command line, so I don't know what Apple might be
planning in areas such as debugging, integrated development environment,
etc.

C has a standard library which is reasonably platform neutral, and I'd
hope to see something similar for Swift when it is open sourced.

> it sounds ill conceived but maybe i am missing something
> maybe adhoc is a better description
> 
> > their Build conference, Microsoft dropped a hint that they will be
> > doing that at some point.
> 
> talk is cheap
> hints are even more economical

Microsoft announced they were adding Objective C to Visual Studio. There
was a followup question about Swift, and the description I've read was
that it would also be supported at a point which suits Microsoft, some
time after the release of Windows 10. They aren't being tied down as to
a timeframe.

Apple's open source Swift will be late 2015, so if Microsoft is waiting
for that, then Microsoft's Swift compiler probably won't appear until
mid to late 2016.

> > I'm curious to see what form the open source Swift compiler takes.
> > Presumably the early versions will be written in C to allow building
> > on top of existing infrastructure and ease porting, but will it also
> > include a Swift compiler written in Swift?
> 
> i don't know anything about swift except what i glean here
> it sounds like swift is akin to Qt

Swift is a programming language, akin to C, C++, Objective C, and other
languages which are normally compiled to platform-specific machine code.

Apple introduced Swift at their 2014 developer conference. It is a
supported alternative to Obective C for writing software on Apple
platforms.

This year Apple announced version 2 of Swift, that it would be open
sourced, and that Apple would be porting Swift to Linux.

Start here for a decription palatable to non-programmers, including
links to more detailed information:

http://www.apple.com/swift/

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

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#76799

FromElectric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid>
Date2015-06-18 09:46 -0700
Message-ID<mlusu3$q4g$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#76747
On Thu, 18 Jun 2015 13:30:40 +1200
dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:

> I said that in the next line, which you snipped. If you want to know

presumably and BSD-like is what you wrote

maybe BSD-like has some meaning to someone

i looked at swift and yawned a lot

it seems akin to some hand waving i just not sure to who the hand waving
was directed

must be the aapple devs and aapple isvs
trying to make them feel good about swift 










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#76800

FromJolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com>
Date2015-06-18 17:01 +0000
Message-ID<cugbqmFkuaoU1@mid.individual.net>
In reply to#76799
On 2015-06-18, Electric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Jun 2015 13:30:40 +1200
> dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
>
>> I said that in the next line, which you snipped. If you want to know
>
> presumably and BSD-like is what you wrote
>
> maybe BSD-like has some meaning to someone

It certainly has meaning to anyone with half a clue.

> i looked at swift and yawned a lot

My grandma would probably have a similar reaction. Luckily I pay more
attention to what actual software developers think.

> it seems akin to some hand waving i just not sure to who the hand waving
> was directed

You sound pretty confused. Maybe programming isn't your forte.

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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#76810

Fromdempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)
Date2015-06-19 12:35 +1200
Message-ID<1m69c7n.9df84uzbrnsqN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>
In reply to#76799
Electric Comet <electric-comet@mail.invalid> wrote:

> On Thu, 18 Jun 2015 13:30:40 +1200
> dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
> 
> > I said that in the next line, which you snipped. If you want to know
> 
> presumably and BSD-like is what you wrote

"Presumably" because it was an educated guess and very probably right.

Swift has the same primary developer as LLVM and Clang, and the Swift
compiler is part of the same set of related products.

LLVM and Clang are already available under a BSD-like open source
licence.

Apple already makes heavy use of open source software with BSD-like
licences, and avoids anything licensed under GPLv3.

It therefore stands to reason that Swift will also be distributed under
a BSD-like open source licence.

> maybe BSD-like has some meaning to someone

It does to anyone who knows even a little about open source programming
or is capable of doing a web search.

The BSD licence (Berkeley Standard Distribution) is one of the oldest
open source licences, on which many others are based (including the
Apache licence, another popular one used by many open source projects).

LLVM and Clang use the "University of Illinois/NCSA" licence, which is
similar in concept to the BSD licence, therefore I called it "BSD-like"
as that name is better known.

http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#license

> i looked at swift and yawned a lot
> 
> it seems akin to some hand waving i just not sure to who the hand waving
> was directed
> 
> must be the aapple devs and aapple isvs
> trying to make them feel good about swift 

So now you at least know it is not interesting to you and you don't need
to pay attention to the discussion.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

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#76815

FromSiri Cruz <chine.bleu@yahoo.com>
Date2015-06-18 17:53 -0700
Message-ID<chine.bleu-40ACB1.17535518062015@88-209-239-213.giganet.hu>
In reply to#76592
In article <sridnZS3tbxwFeDInZ2dnUU7-Q-dnZ2d@giganews.com>,
 Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:

> Where the benefits of Swift may be mighty I somehow doubt that the Linux 
> community will leap at it.  Except perhaps the Android community.

Does it do real garbage collection or reference counts?

-- 
:-<> Siri Seal of Disavowal #000-001. Disavowed. Denied. Deleted.
'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'
When is a Kenyan not a Kenyan? When he's a Canadian.
That's People's Commissioner Siri Cruz now. Punch!

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#76824

Fromdempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)
Date2015-06-19 17:59 +1200
Message-ID<1m69uew.1m46ei61hu5dzgN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>
In reply to#76815
Siri Cruz <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> wrote:

> In article <sridnZS3tbxwFeDInZ2dnUU7-Q-dnZ2d@giganews.com>,
>  Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:
> 
> > Where the benefits of Swift may be mighty I somehow doubt that the Linux
> > community will leap at it.  Except perhaps the Android community.
> 
> Does it do real garbage collection or reference counts?

Automatic Reference Counting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Reference_Counting

Further to what has been mentioned there:

Objective C garbage collection was never supported on iOS. It was
supported on the Mac, but has been deprecated. As of May 2015, Apple is
no longer accepting new/updated Mac App Store apps which use garbage
collection. When Apple eventually removes garbage collection support in
a future OS X version, this will break some old/unsupported Cocoa
applications.

Going forward, Objective C applications on both platforms can use either
manual or automatic reference counting.

Swift requires the use of automatic reference counting on both platforms
(and future ones).

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

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#76827

FromSiri Cruz <chine.bleu@yahoo.com>
Date2015-06-18 23:19 -0700
Message-ID<chine.bleu-15F069.23190318062015@88-209-239-213.giganet.hu>
In reply to#76824
In article <1m69uew.1m46ei61hu5dzgN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>,
 dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:

> Siri Cruz <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > In article <sridnZS3tbxwFeDInZ2dnUU7-Q-dnZ2d@giganews.com>,
> >  Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:
> > 
> > > Where the benefits of Swift may be mighty I somehow doubt that the Linux
> > > community will leap at it.  Except perhaps the Android community.
> > 
> > Does it do real garbage collection or reference counts?
> 
> Automatic Reference Counting.

I'll stick to C with the Boehm­Demers­Weiser collector. Any alternative 
transfers collection of cyclic and possibly cyclic blocks back to the programmer 
with some version of free().

-- 
:-<> Siri Seal of Disavowal #000-001. Disavowed. Denied. Deleted.
'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'
When is a Kenyan not a Kenyan? When he's a Canadian.
That's People's Commissioner Siri Cruz now. Punch!

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#76833

FromKevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrie@pixelmemory.us>
Date2015-06-19 00:39 -0700
Message-ID<mcmurtrie-6701B7.00395719062015@news.sonic.net>
In reply to#76815
In article 
<chine.bleu-40ACB1.17535518062015@88-209-239-213.giganet.hu>,
 Siri Cruz <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> wrote:

> In article <sridnZS3tbxwFeDInZ2dnUU7-Q-dnZ2d@giganews.com>,
>  Alan Browne <alan.browne@freelunchvideotron.ca> wrote:
> 
> > Where the benefits of Swift may be mighty I somehow doubt that the Linux 
> > community will leap at it.  Except perhaps the Android community.
> 
> Does it do real garbage collection or reference counts?

Swift 2 still has only reference counts.  It needs a complicated system 
of strong, weak, and unowned reference declarations to avoid leaking.  
At least to me, this sounds harder than having implicit and explicit 
deallocation in C++.  It also means you get somewhat unpredictable 
deallocation stalls that are hated so much for low latency systems.


I seem to have read that most modern runtimes use hybrid memory 
management for automatic deallocation.  Static analysis during native 
compilation provides instant deallocation when possible and mark/sweep 
catches everything else.

-- 
I will not see posts from astraweb, theremailer, dizum, or google
because they host Usenet flooders.

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