Swift is coming, Swift is coming

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 25 November 2015 at 10:38:52 UTC, Chris wrote:
> On Wednesday, 25 November 2015 at 10:24:14 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>
>> Apple announced earlier this year that Swift will be ported to 
>> linux and open-sourced, so yes, it will.
>
> Then I suppose that companies who use Linux servers and also 
> develop for iOS may adopt it.

Or just anybody deploying to linux.

> However, there are two factors to be considered.
>
> 1) it might not be worth the hassle to use swift on the server. 
> If you also cater for Android etc., you would either lock 
> yourself in or have to maintain two systems.

Only if you're counting the Android device, you could run Swift 
on iOS and the server without a problem.  And it won't be long 
before Swift is ported to Android too, as linux support is most 
of what's needed, so you'd only need Java for the native Android 
UI and Java-only APIs, ie the frontend of your Android app.

> 2) Linux people are naturally skeptical of anything coming from 
> a big company. What if the Linux version always lags behind, 
> because it's not top priority? What if certain new features are 
> Apple only (to give their own servers an advantage)? What if 
> this causes a mess of Linux patches and 3rd party libraries?

I think the linux server crowd is much bigger than that old 
corporate-doubting handful these days.  I doubt Apple has any 
plans to push it as a server option, beyond porting it to linux, 
so I don't see them disadvantaging linux.  It will be up to third 
parties like the company mentioned in the article to develop it 
as a real server alternative.

> Server Swift might really end up as a niche within a niche.

Or it might end up becoming really popular, as a compiled, modern 
language that can be used on mobile and the server.

I don't really care how Swift does or follow it, but it will be 
competition for D, as it has generics, unlike Go, and doesn't 
have Rust's unfamiliar syntax or stringent emphasis on memory 
safety.  It's an up-and-coming competitor for D people to watch 
out for.