IBM Swift Sandbox lets you test Apple's newly open-source programming language in your browser

Wow. I'm not a developer (yet), but this would seemingly portend a potentially huge end run around the corporate Windoze hegemony.

I don't know that it does that completely - There's no reason Swift won't become available for Windows, because it is open source, after all. Yes, it could help break the dominance of Windows-only applications (although that's been fading on its own for quite some time) but it probably doesn't leave Windows out in the cold. Not a developer yet? Definitely use that IBM link. Seeing the code on one side of the screen and the results on the other is one of the best ways to begin.

This is very cool. It even supports Apple's foundation framework. The browser interface is very responsive. This allows any platform with a web browser to try out Swift.

I always wondered if IBM had an interest in Swift in part because of Java/Oracle: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3824372/where-can-i-find-a-particular-version-of-the-ibm-jdk-jre-for-windows http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=14514070 "Unfortunately you can get hold of the JDK only as part of another IBM product (say, Websphere or any Rational product) that you purchased. Our licensing agreement with Sun/Oracle forbids us from providing direct downloads of the IBM JDK on any platforms that Oracle/Sun also support (namely Windows and Linux). If you look at the Java downloads section of the developerWorks website, you'll only find SDKs for AIX, z/OS and Linux on System p/z, since those are IBM owned platforms that Oracle doesn't support." Swift running server-side allows for a replacement for Java and for some businesses replacing Java can cut some costs out: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/price-lists/java-embedded-price-list-1977272.pdf Java is used to develop Android apps too. It would be good to see adoption of Swift in the game SDKs (Unreal, Unity) at least. Having it able to run server-side means an app developer would only need to know one language to make cloud apps. Games have been made where heavy processing parts run on a server: http://www.developer-tech.com/news/2015/aug/05/gamescom-microsoft-demonstrates-power-its-cloud/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJfEUJ57qD8 http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/215532-microsoft-buys-havok-physics-from-intel-could-boost-xbox-one-cloud-gaming As long as the connection is stable, a Swift app can send off a calculation to a server that runs up a number of instances in the same Swift code hundreds of times faster than the device could do on its own and just send back the results.

applesauce007 said:

This is very cool. It even supports Apple's foundation framework. The browser interface is very responsive. This allows any platform with a web browser to try out Swift.

The following site has been available for several months and works a little better than the new IBM site:

http://www.swiftstub.com/ But the IBM site will, certainly, be of greater influence to enterprise.

Here is some Swift code that works on both sites.  It shows one approach to creating an  Ordered Dictionary.   I suspect that Apple will implement a high-performance  Ordered Dictionary  API to support its recently acquired  FoundationDB.

//

//  OrderedDictionary.swift

//  SwiftDataStructures

//

// http://timekl.com/blog/2014/06/02/learning-swift-ordered-dictionaries/

//

//  Created by Tim Ekl on 6/2/14.

//  Copyright (c) 2014 Tim Ekl. All rights reserved.

//

struct OrderedDictionary<Tk: Hashable, Tv> {

    var keys: Array<Tk> = []

    var values: Dictionary<Tk,Tv> = [:]

    

    var count: Int {

        assert(keys.count == values.count, "Keys and values array out of sync")

        return self.keys.count;

    }

    

    // Explicitly define an empty initializer to prevent the default memberwise initializer from being generated

    init() {}

    

    subscript(index: Int) -> Tv? {

        get {

            let key = self.keys[index]

            return self.values[key]

        }

        set(newValue) {

            let key = self.keys[index]

            if (newValue != nil) {

                self.values[key] = newValue

            } else {

                self.values.removeValueForKey(key)

                self.keys.removeAtIndex(index)

            }

        }

    }

    

    subscript(key: Tk) -> Tv? {

        get {

            return self.values[key]

        }

        set(newValue) {

            if newValue == nil {

                self.values.removeValueForKey(key)

                self.keys.filter {$0 != key}

            }

            

            let oldValue = self.values.updateValue(newValue!, forKey: key)

            if oldValue == nil {

                //self.keys.filter {$0 > key}

                self.keys.append(key)

                print("Keys After Adding: \(key) \(keys)")

                od.keys = od.keys.sort()

                print("Keys After Sorting: \(keys)")

            }

        }

    }

    

    var description: String {

        //od.keys = od.keys.sort()

        print("==od.keys: \(od.keys)")

        var result = "{\n"

        for i in 0..<self.count {

            result += "[\(i)]: \(od.keys[i]) => \(od[i]!)\n"

        }

        result += "}"

        return result

    }

}

var od = OrderedDictionary<String,Int>()

print(od.description)

od["Tim"] = 19

print(od.keys)

print(od.description)

od["Tim"] = 24

print(od.description)

od["Alice"] = 12

print(od.description)

od["Catherine"] = 23

print(od.description)

od["Becky"] = 3

print("od.description--\(od.description)")

print("od --\(od)")

od["Alice"] = 42

print("od.description--\(od.description)")

print(od)

print(od.keys)

print(od.keys[0...2].contains("Tim"))

print(od.values)

//var sortedKeys = sort(&od.keys, <)

print(od.description)