Sorry, but I'm highly sceptical of all these surveys that state that language X is popular. They're meaningless in a world where developers employers dictate which language their debs use. The language I'm paid to code in is not my favourite, not even close.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not employed as a programmer (or anything else). But I was -- and I've been around computers from maimframes and their antecedents (1956) to wearables 2015. I have seen lot's of programming languages come and go ... AlGOL, NEST, FORTH, SOAP, FARGO ...
If you make a living programming, likely, you have limited choices, such as:
fulltime employment
contract employment
independent developer
For 1 and 2, above, you, likely, have little freedom to choose the programming language.
Is there still that much CoBOL wotk available?
For 3, however, you probably have more freedom. While, you can't, necessarily, choose your favorite language, you can seek out opportunities that provide the money you need while programming in a language you enjoy.
The survey mentioned in this article cited that developers programming in Objective-C make the most money ... and that Swift was the most popular up-and-coming language.
If these are true, or even reasonable, assessments -- then it appears the big money-making opportunities are independent developers writing Objective-C / Swift programs. And, maybe some emerging opportunities as a full-time hire/contract programmer using Swift (I think Apple, IBM and several others are hiring).
I don't know how current you are in Swift -- it has evolved a lot since the early betas. Everything is not perfect, nor fully-implemented ... but it's getting there, quickly!
With Swift, you can do anything you can do with Objective-C -- including things like using C++ code. This is somewhat kludgy because you use Swift to access C++ code through an Objective-C wrapper ... But, you do it once -- then it's a no=brainer.
Given the choice, Swift seems like a winner!
One thing that wasn't addressed in the article is competition.
When a programming language becomes popular, making a living becomes more difficult because of high-quality, inexpensive programmers in emerging countries (That CoBOL class I taught in Peru in 1968 continues to haunt me).
Anyway, that's my take .... I think that I'll enjoy a Poutine for lunch & suggest you do the same!
So, I'm guessing you either live in Quebec or some part of the rest of Canada that serves, what the English part of a Montreal restaurant menu translates as, "calorie fries". Unfortunately, I'm too health-conscious to indulge myself too often.
My counter-argument to your independent developer assertion is that, currently, it's only possible to develop in Swift for either an iOS or OS X app. As far as I know, there's been no attempt to port Swift to other platforms. That means that if I, for example, want to write a web app hosted on a Linux server in Swift, this option is not available to me. Apple may decide to open source Swift and/or port it to other platforms, but thus far it has not.
My other counter-argument is the depth of the ecosystem of libraries available for the Swift developer. Outside of the standard OS X/iOS/Cocoa libraries, there's not a lot of library code available to a Swift developer. It's possible that Swift supports using C libraries, but somehow I doubt this (even though Objective-C is a strict superset of C). Put another way, if I'm a big Haskell fan and I want to write a webapp, I'm pretty much limited to the library code within the Haskell ecosystem. And put yet another way, if I want to use Kotlin (JetBrains JVM language), then I can instantly make use of not just Java libraries, but all third party Java library code as well, giving me a huge advantage as an independent developer.
So, with all due respect, I only see your argument playing out over the years it would take for a rich ecosystem of libraries, triggered by Apple porting to other platforms and/or open sourcing Swift, for your predictions to come true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not employed as a programmer (or anything else). But I was -- and I've been around computers from maimframes and their antecedents (1956) to wearables 2015. I have seen lot's of programming languages come and go ... AlGOL, NEST, FORTH, SOAP, FARGO ...
If you make a living programming, likely, you have limited choices, such as:
fulltime employment
contract employment
independent developer
For 1 and 2, above, you, likely, have little freedom to choose the programming language.
Is there still that much CoBOL wotk available?
For 3, however, you probably have more freedom. While, you can't, necessarily, choose your favorite language, you can seek out opportunities that provide the money you need while programming in a language you enjoy.
The survey mentioned in this article cited that developers programming in Objective-C make the most money ... and that Swift was the most popular up-and-coming language.
If these are true, or even reasonable, assessments -- then it appears the big money-making opportunities are independent developers writing Objective-C / Swift programs. And, maybe some emerging opportunities as a full-time hire/contract programmer using Swift (I think Apple, IBM and several others are hiring).
I don't know how current you are in Swift -- it has evolved a lot since the early betas. Everything is not perfect, nor fully-implemented ... but it's getting there, quickly!
With Swift, you can do anything you can do with Objective-C -- including things like using C++ code. This is somewhat kludgy because you use Swift to access C++ code through an Objective-C wrapper ... But, you do it once -- then it's a no=brainer.
Given the choice, Swift seems like a winner!
One thing that wasn't addressed in the article is competition.
When a programming language becomes popular, making a living becomes more difficult because of high-quality, inexpensive programmers in emerging countries (That CoBOL class I taught in Peru in 1968 continues to haunt me).
Anyway, that's my take .... I think that I'll enjoy a Poutine for lunch & suggest you do the same!
One of the worst conceived languages in the history of computer languages. The problem with PERL, Ruby et al, is that they violate the most fundamental law in collaborative development; code is written or modified a few times but read orders of magnitude more often.
Doubt it. For Swift to be at all useful it still needs the NS libraries and Apple is not giving that away, especially if they spend a couple billion rewriting them in native Swift.
Apple is not in a hurry to rewrite all their libraries in Swift. They need to remain compatible at the run-time level. But for new stuff Swift will undoubtedly be preferred. The beauty of Swift is that it covers high-level as well as very low level programming. What we also see, is Objective-C getting features that make it play better with Swift.
Comments
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not employed as a programmer (or anything else). But I was -- and I've been around computers from maimframes and their antecedents (1956) to wearables 2015. I have seen lot's of programming languages come and go ... AlGOL, NEST, FORTH, SOAP, FARGO ...
If you make a living programming, likely, you have limited choices, such as:
For 1 and 2, above, you, likely, have little freedom to choose the programming language.
Is there still that much CoBOL wotk available?
For 3, however, you probably have more freedom. While, you can't, necessarily, choose your favorite language, you can seek out opportunities that provide the money you need while programming in a language you enjoy.
The survey mentioned in this article cited that developers programming in Objective-C make the most money ... and that Swift was the most popular up-and-coming language.
If these are true, or even reasonable, assessments -- then it appears the big money-making opportunities are independent developers writing Objective-C / Swift programs. And, maybe some emerging opportunities as a full-time hire/contract programmer using Swift (I think Apple, IBM and several others are hiring).
I don't know how current you are in Swift -- it has evolved a lot since the early betas. Everything is not perfect, nor fully-implemented ... but it's getting there, quickly!
With Swift, you can do anything you can do with Objective-C -- including things like using C++ code. This is somewhat kludgy because you use Swift to access C++ code through an Objective-C wrapper ... But, you do it once -- then it's a no=brainer.
Given the choice, Swift seems like a winner!
One thing that wasn't addressed in the article is competition.
When a programming language becomes popular, making a living becomes more difficult because of high-quality, inexpensive programmers in emerging countries (That CoBOL class I taught in Peru in 1968 continues to haunt me).
Anyway, that's my take .... I think that I'll enjoy a Poutine for lunch & suggest you do the same!
My counter-argument to your independent developer assertion is that, currently, it's only possible to develop in Swift for either an iOS or OS X app. As far as I know, there's been no attempt to port Swift to other platforms. That means that if I, for example, want to write a web app hosted on a Linux server in Swift, this option is not available to me. Apple may decide to open source Swift and/or port it to other platforms, but thus far it has not.
My other counter-argument is the depth of the ecosystem of libraries available for the Swift developer. Outside of the standard OS X/iOS/Cocoa libraries, there's not a lot of library code available to a Swift developer. It's possible that Swift supports using C libraries, but somehow I doubt this (even though Objective-C is a strict superset of C). Put another way, if I'm a big Haskell fan and I want to write a webapp, I'm pretty much limited to the library code within the Haskell ecosystem. And put yet another way, if I want to use Kotlin (JetBrains JVM language), then I can instantly make use of not just Java libraries, but all third party Java library code as well, giving me a huge advantage as an independent developer.
So, with all due respect, I only see your argument playing out over the years it would take for a rich ecosystem of libraries, triggered by Apple porting to other platforms and/or open sourcing Swift, for your predictions to come true.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not employed as a programmer (or anything else). But I was -- and I've been around computers from maimframes and their antecedents (1956) to wearables 2015. I have seen lot's of programming languages come and go ... AlGOL, NEST, FORTH, SOAP, FARGO ...
If you make a living programming, likely, you have limited choices, such as:
For 1 and 2, above, you, likely, have little freedom to choose the programming language.
Is there still that much CoBOL wotk available?
For 3, however, you probably have more freedom. While, you can't, necessarily, choose your favorite language, you can seek out opportunities that provide the money you need while programming in a language you enjoy.
The survey mentioned in this article cited that developers programming in Objective-C make the most money ... and that Swift was the most popular up-and-coming language.
If these are true, or even reasonable, assessments -- then it appears the big money-making opportunities are independent developers writing Objective-C / Swift programs. And, maybe some emerging opportunities as a full-time hire/contract programmer using Swift (I think Apple, IBM and several others are hiring).
I don't know how current you are in Swift -- it has evolved a lot since the early betas. Everything is not perfect, nor fully-implemented ... but it's getting there, quickly!
With Swift, you can do anything you can do with Objective-C -- including things like using C++ code. This is somewhat kludgy because you use Swift to access C++ code through an Objective-C wrapper ... But, you do it once -- then it's a no=brainer.
Given the choice, Swift seems like a winner!
One thing that wasn't addressed in the article is competition.
When a programming language becomes popular, making a living becomes more difficult because of high-quality, inexpensive programmers in emerging countries (That CoBOL class I taught in Peru in 1968 continues to haunt me).
Anyway, that's my take .... I think that I'll enjoy a Poutine for lunch & suggest you do the same!
One of the worst conceived languages in the history of computer languages. The problem with PERL, Ruby et al, is that they violate the most fundamental law in collaborative development; code is written or modified a few times but read orders of magnitude more often.
Doubt it. For Swift to be at all useful it still needs the NS libraries and Apple is not giving that away, especially if they spend a couple billion rewriting them in native Swift.
Apple is not in a hurry to rewrite all their libraries in Swift. They need to remain compatible at the run-time level. But for new stuff Swift will undoubtedly be preferred. The beauty of Swift is that it covers high-level as well as very low level programming. What we also see, is Objective-C getting features that make it play better with Swift.