whats new in swift 6 vs 5

Asked on 2024-08-12

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Swift 6 introduces several new features and improvements over Swift 5, focusing on enhancing portability, performance, and the overall developer experience. Here are some of the key differences and new features in Swift 6 compared to Swift 5:

  1. Data Race Safety: Swift 6 introduces a new language mode that provides data race safety guarantees, helping developers write correct concurrent programs. This feature is opt-in, allowing developers to adopt it module by module (What’s new in Swift).

  2. Non-Copyable Types: Swift 6 introduces non-copyable types, which are a new feature that allows developers to define types that cannot be copied, enhancing memory management and performance (What’s new in Swift).

  3. Embedded Swift: A new language subset called Embedded Swift is introduced, which can run on highly constrained systems like operating system kernels and microcontrollers (Platforms State of the Union).

  4. Concurrency Improvements: Swift 6 continues to improve its concurrency model, building on the async/await and actor model introduced in previous versions (Platforms State of the Union).

  5. Swift Testing Framework: A new testing framework named Swift Testing is introduced, providing expressive APIs to simplify writing tests (Platforms State of the Union).

  6. C++ Interoperability: Swift 6 enhances interoperability with C++, making it easier to integrate Swift with existing C++ codebases (What’s new in Swift).

These updates make Swift 6 a more robust and versatile language, especially for concurrent programming and systems with constrained resources.

whats new in swift 6 vs 5 | Ask WWDC