Apple deploys first preview branch of Swift 3.0 ahead of WWDC 2016

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Developers now have access to the first preview release branch for Swift 3.0, the next evolution of Apple's custom programming language.




"Snapshot" downloads are linked from the official Swift website. The site cautions that the snapshots aren't official releases, and hence have only gone through automated unit testing.

On the Swift GitHub page, it's also warned that 3.0 makes source-breaking changes, although in later versions the goal will be to retain as much compatibility as possible. Anything that might break source will purportedly be rolled out in "the least invasive way" possible.

Apple is likely to showcase Swift 3.0 at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off June 13. The language won't be finalized until sometime later this year however, presumably in time for one of Apple's regular fall press events.

The keynote will most likely concentrate on the next versions of OS X and iOS, as well as improvements to Siri and Apple Music. Apple might theoretically show off new Macs and peripherals, but the company has generally veered away from showcasing hardware at WWDC.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    VisualSeedvisualseed Posts: 217member
    At this point is probably better to break it hard and get it over with than to drag out the torture of incremental updates breaking arbitrary things. I would rather spend 2 or 3 weeks refactoring a project to catch 80% what's been changed and deprecated in 3.0 than to spend 2 or 3 days every few weeks playing Russian roulette each time Xcode is updated.  While we don't have any massive projects utilizing Swift we have made an effort to do more and more with it and have had positive results in where we use it now. 
    edited June 2016
    Grimzahnericthehalfbeemagman1979calitdknoxanton zuykov
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  • Reply 2 of 12
    Grimzahngrimzahn Posts: 64member
    Due the constant changes we dont User Swift in any projects yet.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 3 of 12
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    Grimzahn said:
    Due the constant changes we dont User Swift in any projects yet.
    Probably a good decision, though you don't want to hold off too long.   Swift has been under rapid development since its release.  Even Apple has held off creating operating system distributions with the support libraries.  After recent comments it looks like Swift 4 will be the best place to transition large projects too.   
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 4 of 12
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Version 3.0 is not warranted. This is best labeled a 2.0.
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 5 of 12
    jeffzachariasjeffzacharias Posts: 15member
    Grimzahn said:
    Due the constant changes we dont User Swift in any projects yet.
    We've been using Swift almost 100% for about a year since 2.0 came out.  I don't see any reason to hold off.

    magman1979calistevehnetrox
     4Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 6 of 12
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    mdriftmeyer said:
    Version 3.0 is not warranted. This is best labeled a 2.0.
    huh?
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  • Reply 7 of 12
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    mdriftmeyer said:
    Version 3.0 is not warranted. This is best labeled a 2.0.
    What did you label 2.0 as?
    fastasleep
     1Like 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 8 of 12
    hittrj01hittrj01 Posts: 753member
    crowley said:
    mdriftmeyer said:
    Version 3.0 is not warranted. This is best labeled a 2.0.
    What did you label 2.0 as?
    My guess is he's trying to be snarky and say that 2.0 should have been 1.0, and 1.0 should have been the beta, not realizing the fact that sometimes, the only way to improve something is to actually use it and see how it works, and then improve upon it with further iterations.
    colinngnolamacguyxamax
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  • Reply 9 of 12
    ajmasajmas Posts: 604member
    It is annoying to see these changes forcing us to refactor working code, but we accept it for now, since for some of us the foundation still feels better than Objective-C. Hopefully with Swift 3.0 it will mark the end of these big changes?
     0Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 10 of 12
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member

    I suspect that this was released now, so that the WWDC presos and other examples are [can be] based on 3.0 going forward.


    Edit: Looks like IBM is already using 3.0 in its online Playground/Sandbox:



    edited June 2016
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  • Reply 11 of 12
    netroxnetrox Posts: 1,564member
    Grimzahn said:
    Due the constant changes we dont User Swift in any projects yet.
    Huh? I have been coding using PHP2 all the way up to PHP7. Migrating was not really much of an issue and incompatibilities are easy to fix. So, there's no reason to hold off. Learn Swift NOW and you'll have the edge for being ahead.
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  • Reply 12 of 12
    rcfarcfa Posts: 1,124member
    I like Swift concepts, I hate the message syntax; I wish they'd have an alternative syntax for this language that were more Objective than C(++)/Java(script) like.
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