New Swift project head Ted Kremenek said to be running the show behind the scenes for some...
Apple senior manager Ted Kremenek has been named as the new lead of the Swift development project, and has apparently been operating in that capacity for some time behind the scenes, according to outgoing head Chris Lattner.
On Jan. 10, Lattner told the Swift Evolution mailing list that he was departing Apple for another opportunity, which turned out to be Tesla. In the email, Lattner announced that Kremenec would be taking over for him as the lead of the Swift project.
"This recognizes the incredible effort he has already been putting into the project," wrote Lattner. "This decision wasn't made lightly, and I want you all to know that I'm still completely committed to Swift."
Lattner clarified the appointment in a second email, saying that Kremenek had been operating in the project lead capacity for some time, behind the scenes.
"Ted has been one of the quiet but incredible masterminds behind Swift (and Clang, and the Clang Static Analyzer) for many years," wrote Lattner in the second email. "His approach and modesty has led many to misunderstand the fact that he has actually been running the Swift team for quite some time (misattributing it to me)."
Kremenek obtained a degree in computer science from UCLA, and a doctorate in Philosophy from Stanford. Kremenec was hired by Apple In 2007, and was the principal architect and original engineer of the Clang Static Analyzer that ultimately ended up in Xcode.
In Sept. 2009 to 2013, Kremenek worked on the LLVM Front-end team. Currently, he is a senior manager of languages and runtimes at Apple, and is is responsible for implementing the programming language support in Apple's compilers for Swift, Objective-C, C, and C++.
Lattner was hired by Tesla, and is the company's new vice president of autopilot software. According to colleagues, Lattner was disillusioned by Apple's "culture of secrecy," which is one of the factors that led to his departure from Apple.
"Apple is a truly amazing place to be able to assemble the skills, imagination, and discipline to pull something like this off," Lattner said about his time at Apple. "Swift is in great shape today, and Swift 4 will be a really strong release with Ted as the Project Lead. "
On Jan. 10, Lattner told the Swift Evolution mailing list that he was departing Apple for another opportunity, which turned out to be Tesla. In the email, Lattner announced that Kremenec would be taking over for him as the lead of the Swift project.
"This recognizes the incredible effort he has already been putting into the project," wrote Lattner. "This decision wasn't made lightly, and I want you all to know that I'm still completely committed to Swift."
Lattner clarified the appointment in a second email, saying that Kremenek had been operating in the project lead capacity for some time, behind the scenes.
"Ted has been one of the quiet but incredible masterminds behind Swift (and Clang, and the Clang Static Analyzer) for many years," wrote Lattner in the second email. "His approach and modesty has led many to misunderstand the fact that he has actually been running the Swift team for quite some time (misattributing it to me)."
Kremenek obtained a degree in computer science from UCLA, and a doctorate in Philosophy from Stanford. Kremenec was hired by Apple In 2007, and was the principal architect and original engineer of the Clang Static Analyzer that ultimately ended up in Xcode.
In Sept. 2009 to 2013, Kremenek worked on the LLVM Front-end team. Currently, he is a senior manager of languages and runtimes at Apple, and is is responsible for implementing the programming language support in Apple's compilers for Swift, Objective-C, C, and C++.
Lattner was hired by Tesla, and is the company's new vice president of autopilot software. According to colleagues, Lattner was disillusioned by Apple's "culture of secrecy," which is one of the factors that led to his departure from Apple.
"Apple is a truly amazing place to be able to assemble the skills, imagination, and discipline to pull something like this off," Lattner said about his time at Apple. "Swift is in great shape today, and Swift 4 will be a really strong release with Ted as the Project Lead. "
Comments
He literally took the wind out of the sails of all the haters and naysayers predicting more doom and gloom for Apple and Swift.
Oops he did it again.
Yes, the fact that Lattner is leaving is news, but here's another one no one looked at:
Who's the guy replacing him?
From a little digging around the internet, Ted Kremenek is a Stanford PhD who has been working in engineering lead positions at Apple since 2007. His field of expertise is languages and runtimes, having worked on the same projects as Lattner. Having a look at his entries on the mailing list shows that he's actually been doing a lot more of the management of Swift since mid-2016, so I think Apple has been planning for this for quite some time. What Kremenek lacks is the 'rock-star' status afforded by a project like LLVM, but that doesn't mean he's not capable of taking Swift forward. I'm going to see how he does.
Yes, Lattner is not another programmer, but that doesn't mean he's irreplaceable, especially if you've known for quite some time that he's leaving.
Maybe I should start my own click-bait site.
But more importantly, well done Lattner for setting the record straight and demonstrating the lack of work-ethic and honesty in today click-bait driven media.
While all falling all over themselves to reprint this 'lack of openness' story, not one of these sites stopped to look at the facts.
Swift has been open sourced
The team regularly posts details of current bugs and future plans. (The removal of explicit notation for currying leads me to believe that Swift is a lot closer to Python than it is to Java)
Swift has been ported to Linux
There are already a number of well-designed and documented development frameworks and toolsets from IBM and others.
So where the hell is this 'lack of openness' that everyone is bleating about? Yes, Apple is secretive, but common sense should have told folk that 'being unable to talk' was not the reason he left; Lattner has been talking right up until mid-2016
Swift is in excellent hands (and not just Apple's).
Before this thread is done, someone will swoop in here and claim that Apple made him to say that. I can't say his name, but it rhymes with GassedBore
It's been hard for me to assess the validity of complaints about secrecy. I understand that people who might want to become academics needs a paper publication trail and so might not like the idea of being forbidden from publishing.
But how essential is it to hire those people, and does anyone other than them care about this sort of thing?
Apple is now letting their AI researchers publish academic papers
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/12/26/apples-first-ai-research-paper-focuses-on-computer-vision
And knowledge wants to be freely exchanged and discussed.
When you make your own compilers AND your own SOC (CPU, GPU, RAM, Cache, etc.), and your own OS, you have an amazing level of high powered genius in the room, and the potential for a lot of research and publications. and my guess is This IS Apple's Competitive advantage, and I wouldn't be surprised that the compiler designers, the chip designers, and the Kernel developers are limited by Apple Management in what they can say to the world writ large.
I don't think it's the case here, as I see Chris moving on to a new technical challenge, and not to be the next Richard Stallman.