Mac Pro and Swift vs Silver and PC i5

1st1st
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited June 2015

Time to ask for the Pro for a Pro question: I know the swift is resource hungry (during programming stage), Does anyone uses the entry level Mac Pro and Swift?  - should be sufficient even with next few update of Swift?  How about Silver and PC with i5 or i7 processor? Is it a sufficient or cheap way to perform similar for a beginner to novice level of swift?  Any recommendation or suggestion are welcome.  many thanks in advance.

(Pro Mac will be a step up for 2nd option after get feet wet)...

Thanks again.

              1st

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Why do you regard development using Swift as resource intensive? It had some compiler bugs in its initial release, but I don't understand your concerns. You could write for it on any Mac that supports the latest development tools. I assume "silver" means the older mac pro. I wouldn't purchase one of those for development, because it's not possible to know how long Apple will retain support. A PC is not a very good idea for Swift, because you will require development tools found on OSX. XCode is free. I would suggest also installing the command line tools and possibly brew, if you use a lot of random packages.

  • Reply 2 of 8
    1st1st Posts: 443member



    silver is PC version of swift.   

    http://elementscompiler.com/elements/silver/

    don't have latest Mac, using existing i5 or i7 PC to learn the swift is low cost way to get feet wet and see if it is got hang of it.  If works well in learning stage, the plan is buy an entry level Mac Pro.  Is resource intensive due to some bug that fixed in the later release?  I heard swift crashed i3 processor version of hardware.... If it doesn't need a Mac Pro, all the better.  Many thanks.

                1st

  • Reply 3 of 8
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member

    Never even heard of Silver, but since Swift is still a work-in-progress I'd be very wary of third party development tools.  Compiling Swift isn't that resource intensive, I've done some small projects on an 11" MacBook Air.  I wouldn't recommended doing that for anything of significant size or complexity, but you shouldn't need a Mac Pro if you're a beginner, an iMac or Mac Mini would suffice.

  • Reply 4 of 8
    1st1st Posts: 443member

    Really appreciated. 

    Best regards,

                              1st

  • Reply 5 of 8
    olieonolieon Posts: 2member

    The next-gen Intel Core i5 CPU is a big improvement over previous MacBook processors, and you also get a slightly larger hard drive, along with a better HD Webcam and a Thunderbolt port

  • Reply 6 of 8
    1st1st Posts: 443member

    cool! (new software is always a bit iffy=not exactly know how it will mutated to memory hungry type... hardware is a bit of pie in the sky... once you pay for it, you got stuck for a while - hopefully, the new software is going to be somewhat stay with you... worry all ways it will grow out of favor to your hardware....getting nightmare ... you know what I mean ;-).  Thanks... will see how swift behave...

  • Reply 7 of 8
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by 1st View Post

     

    cool! (new software is always a bit iffy=not exactly know how it will mutated to memory hungry type


     

    If the compiler has some weird bugs, a mac pro will not fix that. Nothing will fix it apart from working around them. The most stable development machine would be a mac, basically any mac.

  • Reply 8 of 8
    1st1st Posts: 443member
    true. "open source" is a bit of difficult to control, unless there are true love more than the abuser .... keep fingers acrossed. Thanks.
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