Apple to make out plans for Swift 4.0

After the release of its version 3.0 of its Swift language, Apple is detailing more on plans for Swift 4.0, expected next year. The upgrade will choice from resilience to memory ownership model to strings, with particular focus on source stability for code and ABI stability for the standard library, according to documentation in GitHub.

The tech giant Apple is dividing the Swift 4 release into two stages. The first stage, involving source and ABI stability, will consider features that do not fundamentally change the ABI of existing features in the language or imply an ABI-breaking alteration to the standard library.

The high-priority features backing stage 1 goals include accommodations to support code bases targeting different language versions, so Swift can deliver on source compatibility goals while progress continues. Also for stage 1, Apple is looking for resilience, specifically to enable APIs to evolve while maintaining a stable ABI.

Apple also touched on generics improvements needed in the standard library. The library has a number of workarounds for language deficiencies, and “if the underlying language deficiencies remain, they become a permanent part of the stable ABI,” the documentation states. “Conditional conformances, recursive protocol requirements, and where clauses for associated types are known to be in this category, but it’s plausible that other features will be in scope if they would be used in the standard library.”

System programmers are seeking an opt-in Cyclone/Rust-inspired model for memory ownership models in high-performance applications. “This feature will fundamentally shape the ABI, from low-level language concerns such as ‘inout’ and low-level ‘addressors’ to its impact on the standard library. While a full memory ownership model is likely too large for Swift 4 stage 1, we need a comprehensive design to understand how it will change the ABI.”

While, Apple also said that it needs to improve code generation, including interaction with the language’s runtime, to stabilize the ABI. “While not specifically user-facing, the decisions here affect performance and (in some rare cases) the future evolution of Swift.” The upgrade also seeks to make strings more powerful and easier to use while retaining correctness with Unicode.

The second stage of Swift 4.0’s development, anticipated next spring, begins when implementation of stage 1 features is “cresting” and contains other large and small features.