I wonder if part of the reason for last year's Swift announcement was that Apple got whiff of Microsoft's Obj-C Cocoa clone.
Swift was obviously half-baked when it came out. It's still far from production quality IMHO. But as a deterrent for this kind of compatibility action, Swift's existence is quite effective.
- Swift support s in Xcode and if Microsoft doesn't watch out their implementation might be miles ahead at their first try
- Swift 1.0 was a marketing 1.0, technically maybe a 0.2 release. I hope I don't need to touch it again in the next year even though I like the language principally
Swift was obviously half-baked when it came out. It's still far from production quality IMHO. But as a deterrent for this kind of compatibility action, Swift's existence is quite effective.