No Swift language for Linux?

lucmove · 03-15-2022, 10:12 PM

I just found out there is a programming language called Swift. And I found it interesting. Seems to be very easy.

Then they say it's only available for Ubuntu. I wonder why. Is the Linux community not interested in it? Is there any reason? I'm just curious.

evo2 · 03-15-2022, 10:32 PM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucmove

I just found out there is a programming language called Swift. And I found it interesting. Seems to be very easy.

Then they say it's only available for Ubuntu. I wonder why.

Presumably you are referring to their compiler, not the language.
I just checked the compiler github repo: https://github.com/apple/swift

It seems to be released under the Apache 2.0 licence. If it builds/runs on Ubuntu then it should also work on other distros

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucmove

Is the Linux community not interested in it? Is there any reason? I'm just curious.

It wouldn't at all surprise me if there is not much interest in things from Apple within the Linux community. I avoid them like the plague.

Evo2.

GentleThotSeaMonkey · 03-15-2022, 10:55 PM

Maybe https://www.linuxcapable.com/how-to-...n-11-bullseye/ (5.4.2; req py3.8)
https://www.cyberithub.com/how-to-in...ntu-20-04-lts/ (5.5.1; no mention of py3.8)

lucmove · 03-15-2022, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GentleThotSeaMonkey

Maybe https://www.linuxcapable.com/how-to-...n-11-bullseye/ (5.4.2; req py3.8)
https://www.cyberithub.com/how-to-in...ntu-20-04-lts/ (5.5.1; no mention of py3.8)

It runs on Python???!!! What is the point?

dugan · 03-15-2022, 11:20 PM

Swift is in Fedora's repos. I just checked.

pan64 · 03-16-2022, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucmove

It runs on Python???!!! What is the point?

No, I don't think so, but it (the package) contains some python scripts.

boughtonp · 03-16-2022, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucmove

Then they say it's only available for Ubuntu.

Who is "they" and what precisely is being said? (Because Apple do not say that.)

rtmistler · 03-16-2022, 08:14 AM

Swift has been around for about 8 years and supported in Linux nearly the whole time. I think the first few releases were MAC only.

sundialsvcs · 03-16-2022, 09:14 AM

Swift was Apple's internal replacement for "Objective C," which proved to be quite difficult to use especially as hardware continued to evolve and "non-Mac" became more interesting and relevant. (Their original Mac programming language was Pascal.)

lucmove · 03-16-2022, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boughtonp

Who is "they" and what precisely is being said? (Because Apple do not say that.)

Whoever they are who maintain the language or at least the website.

https://www.swift.org/platform-support/
https://www.swift.org/download/

boughtonp · 03-16-2022, 03:57 PM

As I said, Apple do not say that - both of those pages explicitly mention CentOS and Amazon Linux too, for both the development tools and as deployment targets, so it's odd that you can say "only available for Ubuntu" whilst clearly being aware of those pages.

Still, if you want to know why Apple only target the OSes they do, you'll need to ask Apple.