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A comment on Ask HN: Rust or Swift for system programming?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Rust or Swift for system programming? by winstonewert on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @11:35AM (#12037131)
"I can't answer for Patrick, but I don't see the term "automatic memory management" as useful as distinction, I look at it more as a spectrum, and Rust/C++ fall squarely on the "more manual" end of that."

I agree 100%. My objection was to the assertion that Rust and Swift were completely different because Swift was garbage collected and Rust was not. That's just not a helpful way of looking at it, because in many ways Swift's strategy is closer to Rust's then Java's.

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Re:Ask HN: Rust or Swift for system programming? by winstonewert on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @03:25PM (#12038868)
Sure there are significant differences between Rust and Swift.

But characterizing that as Swift = GC, Rust = No GC, as I was originally objecting to is a pretty terrible way of describing it.

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Re:Ask HN: Rust or Swift for system programming? by Manishearth on Wednesday July 06, 2016 @05:04AM (#12041990)
Right, but the significant difference does lie in the memory management thing. GC/No GC is (a) correct, according to the academic definition, and (b) a decent approximation to the difference.
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Re:Ask HN: Rust or Swift for system programming? by Manishearth on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @01:50PM (#12038204)
Right, which is why in my other comment I explained why the memory management strategies make them different, and make that difference important :)

type system wise they are pretty comparable otherwise; As a Rustacean who is used to nice type systems, Swift's type system is a pleasure to work with.

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