Swift 3.1 coming in spring 2017, focus quickly switching to Swift 4
Apple's Swift team is aiming to have version 3.1 of the programming language ready next spring, after which it will fully turn its attention to Swift 4, according to a recent blog post.
Swift 3.1 will make some "additive enhancements to the core language," along with improvements to Linux support and the Swift Package Manager, said Apple's Ted Kremenek. He also promised better overall quality for the compiler and Standard Library.
Sources built with the Swift 3.0 compiler should continue to build with 3.1, Kremenek noted, the only exceptions being fixes that cause it to reject code that should've been tossed out anyway.
Instead of irregular "Developer Previews," Swift 3.1 will emerge in daily downloadable "snapshots" of the release branch — making sure that people can test as many features and bugfixes as possible.
Core development of 3.1 is expected to end on Jan. 16, after which only critical fixes will be implemented before the final release. Attention will already be switching to Swift 4.
16 Comments
I recently joined the community that Apple makes available for Developer input to the language's evolution. It's very exciting to listen in to the conversation... and contribute an idea when you have one.
It's nice that there are still some parts of Apple that aren't dysfunctional.
These guys -- along with the SOC designers -- continue to fire on all cylinders.
I am curious if Swift is as big of a deal as Apple suggests...can anyone with experience and knowledge of the programming world comment?
It's not obvious to me how big Swift is in the big scheme of things, but it significantly lowers the bar for writing iOS apps.
Having said that, Objective-C became one of the most popular languages in the world solely because it was required to create iOS apps. Developers will do whatever it takes to be part of the iOS eco-system. Swift just makes that hurdle must less annoying.
Personally, I think Swift is a beautiful, elegant language and am happy to put Objective-C in the rearview mirror. But I doubt it's going to supplant Java for enterprise coding, VB for light office stuff, Python for scripting/hacking, etc. It's just a gift to Apple developers. That's not a bad thing; it's better to have developers saying "I love coding in Swift" rather than "Why do we have to use Objective-C?" But I doubt we'll see any breakthrough apps that wouldn't have been created if Swift was never developed.
To be clear, I'm happy with what Apple is doing with regard to Swift, but I expect it will help Apple as much as owning Java helps Oracle (i.e., not much in any financial sense).