HN Reader

I love Swift, but it has the only compiler that ever told me to rewrite my code because it cannot analyze it in a reasonable length of time.

This... is actually pretty great to have. Very cool.

That said... It really just makes me bummed about the lack of good support for container and sandboxing technology on macOS. I know, totally different thing. But still, we'll probably never have a "native" Docker/Podman/etc. on macOS, and things like the Bazel or Nix sandbox are significantly less effective on macOS due to there just being less kernel APIs for isolating resources. e.g. There are no network namespaces. I get why, but it's surprising how limiting not having network namespaces is once you have used a platform that has an equivalent to this. For Nix it's really tricky since a lot of things need at least a working localhost inside the sandbox. I am sure increasing the surface area of XNU is not a serious consideration, for good reasons, but it's a bit of a shame.

registry.example.com/myservice ?

You lost me there.

swift package --swift-sdk x86_64-swift-linux-musl build-container-image --repository registry.example.com/myservice

No idea how to use it.

Interesting! Does it run on macOS hosts only, or does it install any macOS inside the container?

What is Swift? Why Swift? A lot of discussion here touched this topic. My experience here after 10 years with Swift, starting from version 1. This is how I understood the language through the process of creating several apps (and web services) of non-trivial complexity.

  Swift helps those who want to build end-user products.

Swift is the language for those who need to deliver end-user products, deliver fast and iterate often with minimal friction. You got to be a practical creator who needs to create and deploy to market fast. It's all about achievability of end result within modern world's time constraints. This is where it shines.

  Swift may not fit more pure paradigms.

If you're after the pure art of programming then other languages may speak to you better.

In other words, Swift is extremely PRACTICAL – meaning create, deploy and earn living – and is squarely focused on people who need that. Naturally, not everybody will resonate with its core mission statement.

I dont love the idea of Apple eco system for server side development. I trust them to try make a great eco system for their own OSes based on their self interrest. I do not trust them to drive and maintain a server side eco system, because I don’t see how the effort is directly linked to making money.

That said, Swift and SwiftUI is super nice, so I know they know how to make great software for their OS-es. Almost. Once they fix XCode.

> Container images are the standard way to package cloud software today.

Shame there's no macos native container system or way to make one (my understanding is the kernel isolation primitives are not there)

What’s the general sentiment on Swift?

It’s 11-years old and I don’t see it talked about much on HN (except for discussion on Apple libraries & bugs).

Do people like it as a language, and why?