> Once Swift 5 comes out, does that mean it's "safe" for people to write things in Swift?
It means it's "safe" to ship binaries to people without providing the source and it should remain compatible foreverâ„¢.
> It's a complete mess, and hearing year on year "this is the last time we'll break everything" is getting very tiring.
Swift 3->4 was much easier. Of course, if you're still stuck on Swift 2 this isn't going to help you much…
> Can you promise me if I push for the rewrite in Swift 5 it will be the last time we need to do that (for a reasonable amount of time, say 5 years? Or that changes will be far far more gradual and can incorporate it with our workflow?)
That's how it was supposed to be in Swift 4, and it should get better from there.
It means it's "safe" to ship binaries to people without providing the source and it should remain compatible foreverâ„¢.
> It's a complete mess, and hearing year on year "this is the last time we'll break everything" is getting very tiring.
Swift 3->4 was much easier. Of course, if you're still stuck on Swift 2 this isn't going to help you much…
> Can you promise me if I push for the rewrite in Swift 5 it will be the last time we need to do that (for a reasonable amount of time, say 5 years? Or that changes will be far far more gradual and can incorporate it with our workflow?)
That's how it was supposed to be in Swift 4, and it should get better from there.