swift

Swift at WWDC 2024

Swift was a significant focus at WWDC 2024, with multiple sessions dedicated to its evolution, new features, and applications across various domains. Here are some key highlights:

1. Swift's Evolution and Adoption:

   • Swift celebrated its 10th birthday, and it continues to be a compelling choice for performance-sensitive and secure code. It is used extensively across Apple's software stack, from apps and system services to frameworks and firmware like the secure enclave (Platforms State of the Union).
   • Apple is committed to adopting Swift in their C code bases, improving software quality both at Apple and throughout the industry (Platforms State of the Union).

2. New Features in Swift 6:

   • Data Race Safety: Swift 6 introduces a new language mode that achieves data race safety, expanding Swift's safety guarantees to concurrent programs (What’s new in Swift).
   • Non-Copyable Types: Swift 6 introduces non-copyable types, enhancing memory management and performance (What’s new in Swift).
   • Embedded Swift: A new language subset called Embedded Swift can run on highly constrained systems (What’s new in Swift).
   • Concurrency Improvements: Significant improvements to data race checking and concurrency checking (What’s new in Swift).

3. Swift on Server:

   • Swift's strong typing, optionals, and memory safety make it an excellent choice for writing server applications. It powers many critical features across Apple's cloud services, such as iCloud, keychain, photos, and notes (Explore the Swift on Server ecosystem).
   • The session also covered tools like SwiftLog for structured logging, SwiftMetrics for tracking requests, and Swift Distributed Tracing for end-to-end request tracing (Explore the Swift on Server ecosystem).

4. Swift Data:

   • Swift Data simplifies working with data queries and storage, supporting custom data stores and providing access to the history of changes in a datastore (Platforms State of the Union).
   • New features include the index and unique attributes to optimize queries and ensure data integrity (Platforms State of the Union).

5. SwiftUI Enhancements:

   • SwiftUI has gained new customizations to fine-tune the look and feel of apps, and a new dynamic linking architecture for previews (Platforms State of the Union).

Relevant Sessions

1. Platforms State of the Union
2. What’s new in Swift
3. Explore the Swift on Server ecosystem
4. A Swift Tour: Explore Swift’s features and design

These sessions provide a comprehensive overview of the advancements and new features in Swift, making it an even more powerful and versatile language for developers.