alt Hacker NewsSwift does not seem suitable for OS development, at least not as much as C or C++.[0] Swift handles by default a lot of memory by using reference counting, as I understand it, which is not always suitable for OS development.
[0]: Rust, while no longer officially experimental in the Linux kernel, does not yet have major OSs written purely in it.
Replies
pjmlp • today at 9:28 AM
What matters is what Apple thinks, and officially it is, to the point it is explicitly written on the documentation.
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pornel • today at 10:40 AM
Apple is extending Swift specifically for kernel development.
saagarjha • today at 10:05 AM
Nothing wrong with using reference counting for OS development.
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There's an allocation-free subset.
https://www.swift.org/get-started/embedded/
Rust's approach is overkill, I think. A lot of reference counting and stuff is just fine in a kernel.