alt Hacker News> There is a perception that Swift is only a good language for Apple platforms. While this was once true, this is no longer the case and Swift is becoming increasingly a good cross-platform language.
How good is the developer experience on a non-Apple platform really? Linux is my primary platform and my perception is, that allmost all of the swift eco system is for Apple. Libraries, tools, documentation, IDEs, tutorials, etc. all assume, that you use an Apple.
Can someone tell me who does not use an Apple-device and uses swift?
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It’s not. The Apple devs will tell you it’s a great time on Linux, just like the MS people will tell you the same for C#.
Rust wasn’t designed for any specific platform and you can tell. The ecosystem on Linux especially is fantastic.
I tried doing compiling a few of my Mac CLI tools to Linux. These days, it's faster to run them through an LLM and get quite excellent Go at the other end, and _that_ is much easier to cross-compile.
I have been looking at the new Android support (don't have the link handy) and it's tempting, but I know Kotlin and always developed for Android with a bare Makefile and the JDK, so I don't need any fancy tooling...
Yes, in my experience the Apple bias exists in all the articles and how-tos you read in a way that can trip you up.
It’s been years now but I wanted to create a Set with weak memory in its keys. Everything I read said “oh just use NSHashTable” and I dutifully did (it’s in Foundation) and then when I tried to cross compile it didn’t exist outside of Apple platforms. It’s not as if the import made it clear I wouldn’t be able to use it, but I couldn’t.
Swift has swiftly to manage the Swift compilers to use (equivalent of rustup) and LSP works pretty well. Most of the (open-source) libs that Apple does are cross-platform. I personally take care to make sure my personal libs work on all platforms as well, including Windows(!) (anecdotal, I know…).
All in all it’s not perfect yet, but it’s getting better, with intent to continue in that direction.
My experience is that it is very frustrating. Apple's documentation makes no mention of what works on Linux and its limitations, so you just have to guess or work it out with trial and error.
I tried to write a websocket client: https://willhbr.net/2023/08/23/the-five-stages-of-swift-on-l... Then tried again 2 years later: https://willhbr.net/2025/10/13/the-6-2nd-stage-of-swift-on-l...