Re: What exactly is the point ...
> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/os-x-10-10/21/
Read it. As expected, it's a marketing puff piece for Apple pretending to be a technical overview.
Here's an example of why SWIFT is Totally Awesome:
<QUOTE>
var c = a + b // this needs to be fast
CPUs have instructions for adding two numbers together. Integer values in a low-level language like C must be explicitly declared as such and are stored in memory in a format the CPU is able to consume without modification. The reward for this approach is that C integers can be operated on directly by a CPU’s ADD instruction. Said instruction is exactly what a C compiler will generate in response to some code that adds two integers.
</QUOTE>
As a compiler writer - that's what I do for a living - reading this is Pure Awesomeness. SWIFT can add two integers, and store the result in a variable. And the addition operation is performed by the CPU, which will operate directly on the two integers. And it's gotta be fast too, because the comment says so.
No other programming language can add two integers and store the result in a variable, today. Apple Has Done It Again. It's Magic!
And then, we move on to another Totally Awesome Feature of SWIFT: we can write a function which adds two integers - passed in as function parameters, and the function will return the result of the addition:
<QUOTE>
func add(a : Int, b : Int) -> Int {
return a + b
}
</QUOTE>
Yay for the SWIFT function declaration syntax. No other programing language can declare a function taking two integer parameters and returning the sum. Again, Apple Has Done It Again. This is a defining moment for computer science. We can now have functions taking parameters, operating on said parameters, and returning a result. All of it courtesy of Apple.
And the article goes on and on and on, with pretty graphics, about LLVM, and the LLVM IR, and how the LLVM backend transforms LLVM IR into machine code, and how this is, again, Totally Awesome.
Yet another interpreted scripting language. Because there weren't enough of them already.
The article is a very entertaining read. Not sure that was its intended purpose, though.