Posted by DASD 13 hours ago
Knowledge of Swift not required. If you know your way around OS software, can reason about the security of the code you write, and are excited about writing exhaustively tested software, we’d love to talk to you.
We’re hiring for roles in kernel/systems and userspace. Like the Platforms SOTU mentioned, we’re using Swift at all layers of the software stack now. https://www.youtube.com/live/yl2jsIoMfDU
I had the pleasure of leading the effort to ship Swift in the Secure Enclave back in 2022. Now I have multiple teams working on accelerating the transition to memory safe languages. We’re showing that with good planning and a relentless focus on testing, we can improve security, performance, and functionality. And we get to have a ton of fun working with some amazing colleagues. It’s the most enjoyable and impactful work I’ve ever done in my career.
It does feel like a compiler/optimiser failure to have to rewrite those cases.
That said, I’m looking forward to using Swift lifetimes once they actually work!
RIS is happening across all OS levels, if the keynote is to be believed.
I’m not sure exactly which. I assume it’s some of the code and not all. But it’s not new in the abstract.
That said I don’t think I’ve heard of it in the kernel of MacOS on the main processor. That may be new.
Either way this is certainly the most concrete announcement I remember them ever giving on this stuff.
Edit: This is the guy: https://rustcurious.com/course/
However I miss them actually having had one of those 15 - 30m WWDC sessions, where they could have gone a bit deeper into the keynote examples
In any case I would have liked to have more info during the deep dive sessions.
As it is, Meet with Apple on security (a 5h long event) had much more information.
Apache2's license I've heard described as mutually-assured-patent-destruction - if you use the code and make a patent claim, your rights to use the code go away.
So Apache2 offers little benefit here, and MIT may get it into more hands?
I'm not sure what became of it and if it ever shipped. If anyone knows I'd be curious.
https://faultlore.com/blah/swift-abi/ (written by a core Rust developer)
[1] apart from the basic/universal C one, which prevents exposing any useful Rust semantics over the interface
Rust is also just a more complex language. I’m not convinced the benefits would have been worth it.
Swift is also interoperable with different versions of itself courtesy of the Swift stable ABI (Application Binary Interface)[0], which they invested a significant amount of time into at the expense of adding other new features to the language, which have come along later.
Rust offers a different approach: recompile everything and static linking.
You missed Java as well.
Rust 2026 roadmap has language ergonomics on it for a reason.
That said, outside Apple ecosystem you probably better with Rust, or if one has no GC issues, OCaml, Haskell, F#, Scala, C#.
Many features that get discussed as being Swift/Rust, trace back to one of those languages.
The gap between the two languages is quite small, it just makes me wish Apple was also all-in on Rust
They have further and much more significant changes that I think might have recently landed in the development version. That should make an even bigger difference. But it’s not in a released version yet.
And yes, none of us like that one part of Swift. Especially the DRASTIC difference compared to objective-C which really only checked syntax and little else.
It’s still probably my favorite language right now though I don’t get to write in it much.
I use it for making user-facing desktop applications, to name one example.
If somebody is mulling over Rust but finds it too difficult to grasp, they could start off with Swift first and then move over to Rust.
One of the main advantages of Rust is a more developed and thriving ecosystem.
Being more ergonomic is relevant enough for increasing language adoption, that possible improvements are now on Rust roadmap.
Vello has been a big inspiration and source of knowledge for my own webgpu text renderer, thank you for that!
Just strings or rendering strings?
If the latter, who are the other members of the club?