Swift
Mobile· alive, actively evolving· since 2014 · Chris Lattner · Apple
Programming language for building apps on Apple platforms such as iOS and macOS.
Draft from 2026-10-30, not yet checked claim by claim against its sources. Help verify it.
Born from
Chris Lattner started Swift at Apple in July 2010. Objective-C sat on top of C, with C's pointers and unchecked memory, and Lattner later said that memory safety could not be added to Objective-C without removing the C underneath, which would no longer be Objective-C.
What it trades away
Cost: Tooling and libraries are strongest on Apple platforms, reference counting needs weak references to break cycles by hand, and the binary interface was only declared stable in 2019.
Where it fits
| Slot | Fit | |
|---|---|---|
| mobile | ●●● | |
| server | ●○○ | Server frameworks such as Vapor exist, but server use is small. |
| browser | ○○○ | Not a web page language. |
Why it exists
Chris Lattner started Swift at Apple in July 2010 (Lattner, history of Swift). Objective-C was C with Smalltalk-style messaging on top, so it inherited C’s pointers and unchecked memory. In a 2019 podcast Lattner explained why the team did not simply fix Objective-C: “you can’t retrofit memory safety into Objective-C without removing the C”, and removing the C would leave something that was “not Objective-C anymore” (Ole Begemann, Chris Lattner on the origins of Swift). Apple announced Swift at WWDC 2014 as a beta for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite (InfoQ).
What it trades away
Swift is strongest on Apple platforms, and outside them the tooling and libraries are thinner. Its binary interface was only declared stable with Swift 5 in 2019, which means that compiled code from one compiler version could not be relied on to work with another before then (Swift.org). Reference counting also means that cycles of objects have to be broken by hand with weak references.
Where it won
Apple describes Swift as its language for all Apple platforms (Apple), and its SwiftUI framework for app interfaces has been available since iOS 13 and macOS 10.15 (Apple SwiftUI). Apple released Swift as open source under the Apache 2.0 licence on 4 December 2015, with support for Linux as well as Apple platforms (Apple press release). Server use, with frameworks such as Vapor, is much smaller than app development.
Named wins
- Apple's platforms, for which Apple describes Swift as its language source
- SwiftUI, Apple's framework for app interfaces on its platforms, available from iOS 13 and macOS 10.15 source
Evolution
Reacts to: objective-c, Rust, Haskell, Ruby, Python, C#
Weigh it against: objective-c, Kotlin, Dart, TypeScript
Timeline
- 2010Chris Lattner starts Swift at Apple in July 2010 source
- 2014Apple announces Swift at WWDC 2014 as a beta for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite source
- 2015Apple releases Swift as open source under Apache 2.0, with Linux support source
- 2019Swift 5 is declared ABI stable on Apple platforms source
Links
Sources
- https://nondot.org/sabre/
- https://www.infoq.com/news/2014/06/apple-swift
- https://www.apple.com/nz/newsroom/2015/12/03Apple-Releases-Swift-as-Open-Source/
- https://swift.org/blog/abi-stability-and-more/
- https://developer.apple.com/swift/
- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui.md
- https://oleb.net/2019/chris-lattner-swift-origins/
- https://pldb.io/concepts/swift.html
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