Re:Introducing Swift
by jsmthrowaway on Monday June 02, 2014 @09:09PM
(#7837603)
> But that's a very important use case.
For Rust. I didn't make the comparison to Rust, I merely was intrigued by the choice of features and in which order to defend the comparison made by someone else. I see Rust and Swift as targeting entirely different things, at least at first (which means that Swift can certainly evolve inline assembly if it is so needed), and any comparison at this stage is pointless.
> It's all over the place in the Linux kernel.
Cool, that's one piece of software. I'll save you the next few: drivers and a couple files in a game engine. You're disputing my point how, exactly?
That said, I think inline assembler is an important feature:
> It's interesting that inline assembly is your first bullet point, since there's nothing I can think of that ruins a code file more than inline assembly in a host language. Put that crap in a .S file and link it in like everything else, for crying out loud.
That's too slow. You need to give the optimizer more information than that, and the overhead of the procedure call can be significant.
> The one time you need inline assembly is when you don't want to build a function frame, such as a tight loop, but come on.
But that's a very important use case.
> Also, even in systems, I can think of about once a decade I even need to write assembly, so... maybe grasping at straws a bit?
It's all over the place in the Linux kernel.