Swift 4 is Officially Available: What's New
Swift’s latest major release contains many changes and updates to the language and the standard library, most notably new String features, extended collections, archival and serialization, and more.
Swift 5 Sets its Goals, Defines New Evolution Process
Expected to be released in late 2018, Swift 5 will bring ABI stability and further work on API resilience and memory ownership. A new evolution process will help ensure Swift 5 development keeps its focus on its planned goals.
Apple Open-Sources the Swift Language Migrator
Apple has open-sourced the Swift 4 migrator that is included in Xcode 9, recently announced at WWDC 2017.
Swift 3.1 Improves Language, Package Manager, and Linux Implementation
Staying true to its plan, the recently announced Swift 3.1 is source compatible with Swift 3.0. Still, it includes a number of changes to the language, the standard library, and improved Linux implementation.
Swift Memory Ownership Manifesto
According to Chris Lattner, Swift creator and Swift team lead before moving to Tesla, defining a Rust/Cyclone-inspired memory ownership model is one of the main goals for Swift development. Now that Swift 4 has entered its phase 2, the Swift team has published a manifesto detailing how Swift memory ownership could work.
Swift 4 Enters Final Stage, Defers ABI Stability
Apple has detailed the release process for Swift 4, which should become available in the Fall of 2017. The main focus of this release is to provide significant enhancements to the core language and standard library, while delivering source compatibility. ABI compatibility, which was originally in the roadmap, will be deferred, explains Apples' new Swift team lead Ted Kremenek.
The Road to Swift 4 ABI Stability
Recently published on the swift-evolution mailing list, the Swift ABI Stability Manifesto aims to be a compilation of all concerns that need to be addressed before Swift’s ABI can be declared stable. Yet, it is not entirely clear whether ABI stability will make it into Swift 4.
Swift 3.1 Enters its Final Development Stage
Apple’s Swift team has made public their release plan for Swift 3.1, expected to be available in the Spring of 2017 and source-compatible with Swift 3.0, writes Apple’s language and runtimes manager Ted Kremenek.
Microsoft to Announce Visual Studio for Mac
The MSDN Blog briefly published a post on Visual Studio for Mac, then they took it down because the new product is supposed to be announced at Microsoft Connect(), which is to take place from Nov 16-18, 2016. A copy of the page can be accessed on Google’s cache.
The Roadmap to Swift 4
Expected to be released in late 2017, Swift 4 will aim to stabilize the language, both at the source code and ABI level. New features will include improvements to generics, and a Rust/Cyclone-inspired memory ownership model.
Swift 3 is out
Swift 3.0 has been released, writes Apple engineer Ted Kremenek, bringing a wealth of changes to the language and its standard library, additions to the Linux port, and the first official release of the Swift Package Manager.
ChakraCore Now Works on Linux and Mac OS
Microsoft has demonstrated ChakraCore running on Linux and Mac OS X, and Node.js/ChakraCore on Linux.
Apple Open-Sources its New Compression Algorithm LZFSE
Apple has open-sourced its new lossless compression algorithm, LZFSE, introduced last year with iOS 9 and OS X 10.10. According to Apple, LZFE provides the same compression gain as ZLib level 5 while being 2x–3x faster and with higher energy efficiency.
A Look at APFS, Apple’s New File System for iOS and macOS
Among the announcements Apple made at WWDC 2016, its new file system, called APFS, raised a lot of developer interest. APFS brings strong encryption, copy-on-write metadata, space sharing, cloning for files and directories, snapshots, and more to macOS, iOS, tvOS, and watchOS.
Xcode 8 Brings Swift 3, Editor Plug-ins, and More
At WWDC 2016, Apple announced Xcode 8, the latest version of its IDE for iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. Now available in beta, Xcode 8 brings Swift 3, improved address and thread sanitizer, a new editor extension architecture, and more.
