[freyir]

Swift, XCode, and Apple software in general don't scream reliability to me. No doubt Lattner is a smart guy, but I'd be more comfortable with a smart guy from NASA or somewhere similar with experience developing survival-critical software systems.

[noobermin]

This is my feeling too. Yes, I'm a scientist, so I'm from that side of the pond, but does it make sense to hire a developer type for engineering where lives could be at stake?

Not that dev'ing should rise to that level, but it isn't the typical level most developers work at. Also, if he is more of a "software correctness and reliability" guy as abalone says he is, then yes, that is the right direction.

[shiny]

Pretty much none of Apple's current software is written in Swift though, from what I can tell.

[dwaite]

Actually a fair bit is in Sierra. Apple decided apparently not to invest resources in targeting 32-bit platform support, so they have had to hold off shipping software relying on it until the platforms drop 32-bit support. Sierra did that last year, and I'd put $5 on iOS 11 doing that as well.

[dwaite]

Correct, I should have said "the platforms dropping 32-bit processor support".

The ability to run 32-bit applications means that preexisting libraries cannot incorporate Swift code yet.

The "application may slow down your phone" warnings that users are getting with 32-bit apps this year is a pretty strong indicator that Apple is going to remove support for running 32-bit apps completely for iOS 11 or 12. They previously had a deadline for apps to have 64-bit version submitted, but backed off the ultimatum for now.

[gurkendoktor]

> They previously had a deadline for apps to have 64-bit version submitted, but backed off the ultimatum for now.

Apps have had to support 64-bit since June 2015 (February 2015 for new apps), and Apple hasn't backed off that deadline. But there are still 32-bit apps on the store that haven't received an 64-bit update, and I don't think Apple has ever stated what it is going to do about them (other than showing the warning).

[mikeash]

Swift supports 32-bit iOS, just not 32-bit Mac.

Apple can't write Swift libraries (at least not ones that are publicly exposed) until the ABI stabilizes, so that will not happen until at least Swift 4. Apple can write Swift apps as long as they don't need to support 32-bit Mac, which they haven't needed to do for years.

[valleyer]

Sierra did not drop support for 32-bit apps. It doesn't support 32-bit hardware, but that change was made many releases ago (Mac OS X Lion IIRC).

[rarepostinlurkr]

Sierra did not drop support for 32-bit applications. Pretty sure Microsoft Office just released a 64-bit version of their product a month or two ago. Good luck dropping 32-bit on the Mac and godspeed.

[chris_7]

Including the Swift compiler itself - though at least that might prevent the segfaults.

[devsquid]

If I remember right, its just the calculator app. Lol....

[pjmlp]

The dock and launchd were rewritten in Swift for Sierra.

There is a WWDC session talking about it.

[devsquid]

Well that doesn't bode well ;) Sierra's dock is sooo buggy. I have to restart my machine numerous times a day because the dock stops working, literally doesn't work lol. I'm sure theres a way to restart just the dock app, but eh i've been quite busy. Sierra has been one of the buggiest version of Mac I can remember using.

I would surprised if they actually did tho. I know someone did some static analysis of the apps for mac and iOS and found Swift was barely used at all.

[amiga-workbench]

The dock is a separate process, as is Finder, you can just kill them.

I have to stomp on coreaudiod a few times a month because my USB DAC stops responding.

[ryanmarsh]

NASA has a culture of safety and redundancy ad nauseam because people are indoctrinated into it, not because their hires have an innate proclivity for it.

It is not fair to judge Lattner's ability or commitment to safety based upon Xcode and Swift. One of these predates him, the other is the result of his decisions (no doubt) but also countless decisions of others, including those above his pay grade at Apple.

Xcode is basically the evolution of something designed for NEXT. Swift is a solution to various problems in application development. I'm not aware if he (et.al.) had real time processing or safety critical devices in mind with 3.0.2.

[freyir]

> NASA has a culture of safety and redundancy ad nauseam because people are indoctrinated

I'm not claiming Lattner is missing some innate ability -- it just appears they're putting someone in charge who has never been exposed to this mindset. Maybe they have a culture or other leaders already in place who can foster this within the team.

> It is not fair to judge Lattner's ability or commitment to safety based upon Xcode and Swift.

To be fair, we cannot judge Lattner's ability or commitment to safety at all, because he has no publicly-known experience with safety-critical systems.

Perhaps he has relevant experience that's not public. And if it turns out he has no relevant experience, I'm not saying he can't learn. It's just strange for Tesla to put someone in charge who will be learning on the job.

[pjmlp]

Probably not, but the WWDC session about real time audio used Swift on their presentation.

http://devstreaming.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2016/507n0zrhzxdzm...

[ryanmarsh]

"Real-time" audio doesn't involve human critical systems.

[pjmlp]

Of course not, but part of the sentence said

> I'm not aware if he (et.al.) had real time processing

[devsquid]

I know the first thing I thought about was does this mean Tesla's going to start writing its software in Swift. If so they are fucked :P. (BTW I write non-critical consumer software in Swift as my day job)

[webjprgm]

Swift has its problems but keeps getting better. I only get to use it for my at-home projects, since at work the portion of the codebase that is for iOS is Objective-C with no plans to switch any time soon. Old Obj-C too, and started by people used to programming in VB on MS platforms. So count your blessings.

[devsquid]

I find Swift to be getting worse each year. While sure i'm blessed that I don't have to write applications in assemble, I have grown jaded towards Swift. If it wasn't because I am an iOS developer, I would happily not use the language. I have been slowly positioning myself away from doing iOS development. I feel like a massive corporation like Apple can provide better tools to write apps for their walled garden than what they are providing me.

[72deluxe]

What would you recommend instead?

C#? C++?

C++ has become incredibly great recently after languishing in the C++2003 period for too long.

[nicky0]

SPARK ADA of course.