Apple Highlights Swift’s Safety, Speed, Approachability, and C/C++ Interoperability as Key Advantages Over C++
During a keynote presentation at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 10, Ted Kremenek, Apple’s director of languages and runtimes, made a compelling case for Swift as the optimal successor to C++. Introduced in 2014 as a replacement for Objective-C, Swift is now being positioned as the best choice to succeed C++, thanks to its safety, speed, approachability, and built-in interoperability with C and C++.
Swift’s emphasis on safety is a significant factor in this transition. With the increasing focus on memory-safe programming languages, partly driven by a February report from the White House urging developers to adopt safer coding practices, Swift aligns with these goals. Kremenek noted that Apple is committed to integrating Swift into its own C++ codebases, a shift from its previous reliance on C, C++, and Objective-C for software development on Apple devices.
The upcoming Swift 6 release, planned for later this year, is set to enhance the language’s capabilities with features designed to make concurrent programming safer and more accessible. One of the most notable improvements is full data race safety. Data races occur when multiple parts of a program attempt to modify and access the same data simultaneously, leading to unpredictable behavior and bugs. Swift 6 aims to address this issue by diagnosing data races at compile time, thus preventing these errors from occurring in runtime.
Swift 6 introduces a new language mode specifically for compile-time data race safety. While this feature will significantly improve code reliability, it is optional, allowing developers to opt in as needed. This flexibility acknowledges that the shift to data race safety may require adjustments to existing codebases. Apple had previously introduced data race safety in Swift 5.10, but Swift 6 will enforce full data isolation by default, further bolstering the language’s reliability.
In addition to safety enhancements, Swift 6 will expand its support for different operating systems. The new release will include improved support for Debian and Fedora Linux distributions, and better compatibility with Windows. Generics, a core feature of Swift, are also set to receive attention, with plans to develop a subset tailored for constrained environments such as OS kernels and microcontrollers. This improvement aims to make Swift more versatile across a range of platforms and use cases.
Apple is also investing in broadening Swift’s development environment support. Swift 6 will see enhanced integration with Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code editor and other editors that utilize the Language Server Protocol. These efforts are designed to make Swift more accessible and efficient for developers working across different platforms and development tools, further solidifying its position as a leading programming language for modern software development.