Swift already works on Android and Windows. The support for Windows is improving and on the way to being official instead of questionable. The Browser Company is already building their app on Windows with Swift.
Swift’s governance has had some bumps in the past but is improving. Apple does have a vested interest in Swift adoption outside of their platforms. The more popular it is in general, the better the community and ecosystem get.
I can’t look at the source right now, but it’s likely heap. Swift stdlib collections typically use a buffer that is a reference type. The whole ‘copy on write’ thing requires reference types somewhere in the guts (if I remember correctly).
I am genuinely so thankful for my job. Small start up where the founder is funding the whole thing himself and actually works as a dev as he’s able.
The amount of autonomy I’ve had since day 1 is wonderful. I put in a lot of time because I enjoy the work. My pay is a little low but not bad and usually increases by a lot each year. We’re 100% remote.
I just can’t imagine willingly leaving after reading the nonsense that most of you are dealing with. I got so lucky and you can pry my current job from my cold, dead hands.
For iOS you can still use Objective C, but there are additions to platform frameworks and whole new frameworks that are Swift first. I don’t really know how hard it would be to use those APIs from Objective C. Swift is certainly the default going forward.
I don’t work on Android but my understanding is that Java hasn’t and isn’t going anywhere on Android. Kotlin is supposed to be great but I haven’t heard mention of Java being dropped.
To be fair, Swift uses reference counting instead of garbage collection which has different tradeoffs than GC but does incur a performance penalty.
I can’t compare compile times to C++ or Rust but I would expect it to be in the same ballpark of Rust. However, the way I develop is with all external dependencies binary cached so I only have to build my code.
As far as the language itself is concerned, I love it. It really is like a, “Diet Rust Lite”. By which I mean, it’s powerful but a lot less pedantic by doing some things for you that Rust puts on the developer. If you’re deploying in an environment that can tolerate less fine control over memory use and instructions, Swift is the better option IMO.
If you’d like to read the observations of a team that can really evaluate Swift and compare it to other options: https://forums.swift.org/t/our-journey-with-swift-thus-far-some-notes-and-reflections/70510
Id be happy to discuss finer points if anybody wants.
Edit: Swift for C++ devs series by a swift core team member — https://www.douggregor.net/posts/swift-for-cxx-practitioners-value-types