[jaegerpicker]

I have a production app in the AppStore in 100% swift 2.2. To me it's the most exciting new language out right now. It does not have too many brand new features that other languages don't have but it's implemented most of those modern features in a very solid robust easy to understand and use way. It's functional but not purely, it's object oriented but has great ways to avoid the worst of the designs most of us have been bitten by in the past. We are in a Java, PHP, Node.js, and Swift shop. Swift is BY far the least bug prone and most stable code. It's fast and easy to understand.

It's not perfect, Generics and Protocols are fuzzy at best and if you aren't careful with optionals you can actively harm the stability of your code base. It has a long way to go on the server side but I do believe that it will and should be a great server side language platform. That said in my opinion it's the best language I've worked with professionally.

For reference I've professional written a decent amount of code in: Python Java C# C++/C Objective-C Perl PHP Node.js/JavaScript VB6/VB.net Ruby Groovy Scala

[danappelxx]

How are generics 'fuzzy at best'? I can understand why you could think that associated types in protocols can be a pain in the ass, but there are reasons why its done this way.

[jaegerpicker]

Sorry was generalizing. I meant generics and protocols in combination. The ability to define a protocol based on a generic would be fantastic. It's something that is solved in Haskell fairly well.

[Razengan]

Isn't that somewhat possible with extensions and constraints? At least that was the impression given by last year's WWDC talk [1], unless you're thinking of something else?

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/408/

[riyadparvez]

Can you elaborate more on Swift vs Scala? What are the strong and weak sides of each language?

[austinz]

Scala tries a lot harder than Swift to unify object-oriented and functional programming principles.

For example, in Scala operators are (IIRC) implemented as methods on objects, there's a 'Nothing' bottom type that is used for covariant generic parameterization, and ADTs are implemented using inheritance in the form of case classes.

Swift has no top-level object type or bottom type, and a lot of its more functional style features (ADTs in the form of 'enums', value types that enforce immutability) are completely divorced from the object-oriented part of the language.

[jaegerpicker]

Very similar languages IMO. Scala is a little heavier on the functional and academic fronts. It's syntax is also much heavier on symbols. In general I think scala has a steeper learning curve. I like scala though. Similar ideas at their core, a mixed paradigm approach. Similar also in that both have a legacy language that they need to interop with. That legacy also bleeds through to both pretty heavily. I also much prefer a native ecosystem vs the jvm.

The one big area that separates the languages is tooling. I personally think Swift's tooling is much better. Faster compilation, faster runtime, faster startup, and better ide tooling.