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"Swift as C++ Successor in FoundationDB" by Konrad Malawski (Strange Loop 2023)

"Swift as C++ Successor in FoundationDB" by Konrad Malawski (Strange Loop 2023) on HackerTube: recommended by 3 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2023–2025.

Konrad Malawski's Strange Loop 2023 talk shows how the FoundationDB team adopted Swift incrementally in a C++ codebase. It covers Swift's C++ interoperability, which let them move single functions or entire types over one at a time.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters recommend it as the main resource on Swift as an incremental successor to C++ and on how the interoperability works in practice.

people recommended it
3
separate months
3
strong recommendations
0
discussed on HN
2023–2025
“The fairly recent presentation about starting to move FoundationDB to Swift[0] was also very interesting.”
— cube2222, Aug 2024, in “Ladybird browser to start using Swift language this fall”

What HN commenters said

9 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

cube2222Aug 2024Recommends

Honestly, Swift seems like such a nice language. Most of the performance and power, great interop, but more directed at application development than Rust (with e.g. refcounting being the default). But as they say, you choose a language for its ecosystem, not for the language itself. It would be great if Swift’s open source ecosystem for stuff other than app development grew. It does indeed seem like Apple is pushing for it with stuff like Swift for embedded. The fairly recent presentation about starting to move FoundationDB to Swift[0] was also very interesting. A follow-up on that at some point would be quite interesting to see too, and would inspire confidence if the process is going well. Arc is also a nice example of a cross-platform app written in Swift, with their fairly recent addition of Windows support. Either way, fingers crossed, and very happy with TFA. PS: does anybody have experience with async/await in Swift? Is it pleasant to use? [0]: ▶ this video

in “Ladybird browser to start using Swift language this fall” · View on HN

glhaynesJun 2024Recommends

I'm not a (direct) user of the C++ interop, but everything I've heard about it has been quite positive. A few hopefully relevant resources, first a couple of videos: - "Introducing a Memory-Safe Successor Language in Large C++ Code Bases" (John McCall; CppNow 2023) [link] - "Swift as C++ Successor in FoundationDB" (Konrad Malawski; Strange Loop 2023) ▶ this video And then a series of blog posts by Doug Gregor: - "Swift for C++ Practitioners" [link] And finally: - "Mixing Swift and C++" (Swift.org) [link]

in “Swift Static Linux SDK” · View on HN

mannuchDec 2023Recommends

I wonder what the author thinks about Swift’s new C++ interop story? Since the Swift compiler includes Clang, and can thus compile both your C++ and Swift into LLVM IR, without the need for an FFI later between the two, couldn’t this be the “Typescript for C++” that the author points out a space for? The Swift folks are very much thinking about Swift as a C++ successor that can be incrementally migrated to so I’m a bit surprised the author didn’t discuss it further — especially given Swift’s spiritual similarities to Rust. There’s a couple great talks on this by folks on the Swift team. John McCall at CppNow [link] Konrad Malawski at StrangeLoop 2023 ▶ this video

in “Memory safety is necessary, not sufficient” · View on HN

pjmlpJul 2025Cites it

Nowadays being rewritten into Swift. "Swift as C++ Successor in FoundationDB" by Konrad Malawski (Strange Loop 2023) ▶ this video

in “FoundationDB: From idea to Apple acquisition [video]” · View on HN

pjmlpApr 2025Cites it

Yes, Apple themselves, apparently folks wanting Apple to use Rust don't read Apple's documentation or watch talks done by Apple compiler developers. > Swift was designed from the outset to be safer than C-based languages, and eliminates entire classes of unsafe code. -- [link] > Swift is a successor to the C, C++, and Objective-C languages. It includes low-level primitives such as types, flow control, and operators. It also provides object-oriented features such as classes, protocols, and generics. -- [link] "Introducing a Memory-Safe Successor Language in Large C++ Code Bases" [link] "So we feel pretty strongly, obviously at Apple our sucessor language is Swift and I am here to talk about features of Swift, both to try to sell you on to it, but also to talk about the things we think are pretty necessary and the ways in which a programming language can support, you know, clear code, safer and more correct code." "Like I said before, Apple has always intended for Swift to be a sucessor language for all of our predecessors, from the top to the bottom of our stack, accessible to novices, powerful enough for experts, it is real a tall order. From [link] to [link] "Swift as C++ Successor in FoundationDB" ▶ this video

in “Apple’s Darwin OS and XNU Kernel Deep Dive” · View on HN

SomeoneSep 2024Cites it

> I’d be interested to know how good this integration is in practice I haven’t used it, but from looking at the long) video at ▶ this video (discussed in [link] ), it looks pretty good.

in “Swift 6” · View on HN

Show 3 more comments
sandyarmstrongJan 2024Cites it

Yup, exactly. Swift was specifically designed to replace Objective-C and C++ throughout Apple codebases (see ▶ this video ). C# is a totally different story.

in “9 years of Apple text editor solo dev” · View on HN

frankjrJan 2024Cites it

A lot of details on the interoperability also in the recent talk "Swift as C++ Successor in FoundationDB" at Strange Loop 2023. ▶ this video

in “Apple hiring compiler developers for improving Swift / C++ interoperability” · View on HN

pjmlpOct 2023Cites it

On the same subject, some talks from Apple folks, "Introducing a Memory-Safe Successor Language in Large C++ Code Bases" [link] "Swift as C++ Successor in FoundationDB" ▶ this video

in “Apple's use of Swift and SwiftUI in iOS 17” · View on HN

Topics & tags

C, C++, Rust, Go & systems languagesDatabases & storageProgramming language designswiftc++foundationdbinteropincremental migrationstrange loop