Why I want Swift to be your first language

Re:Why I want Swift to be your first language by markhahn on Thursday August 27, 2015 @03:30PM (#10131523)

The article was a reasonably persuasive argument for why Python should be your first language. Maybe someone should write "Why I want Swift to be relevant to non-Appleheads".

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Re:Why I want Swift to be your first language by oddevan on Thursday August 27, 2015 @03:33PM (#10131540)

Except for the part where he specifically mentioned Swift's ARC as something to expose Intro students to vs. Python's garbage collection?

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Re:Why I want Swift to be your first language by zxcvcxz on Thursday August 27, 2015 @03:49PM (#10131630)

Isn't ARC almost exclusive to "Apple languages"? It seems like GC is much more relevant.

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Re:Why I want Swift to be your first language by AlexeyBrin on Thursday August 27, 2015 @04:18PM (#10131824)

Not necessarily, C++11 has smart pointers which have reference counting.

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Re:Why I want Swift to be your first language by gorena on Thursday August 27, 2015 @04:06PM (#10131742)

- Python does not implement nullability as an ADT.

- Python does not have a type system worth mentioning.

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Re:Why I want Swift to be your first language by AstralStorm on Saturday August 29, 2015 @11:08AM (#10140220)

Nullability is an interface, not a data type. Python objects can always be None, as per duck typing.

Python has a strong dynamic typing system, with metatypes, type rewriting and so on. You couldn't be more wrong. What it is missing is an easy way to declare interfaces - the idea is to use duck typing and handling exceptions when something goes wrong.

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Re:Why I want Swift to be your first language by spion on Saturday August 29, 2015 @10:54PM (#10142115)

If its None, it neither looks, acts nor quacks like a duck.

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