<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Apr 3, 2016, at 8:51 PM, David Waite via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""></blockquote><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Swift also has the benefit of built-in access to C/C++ and in some environments Objective-C code and libraries. This means it does not have to strive to either replace or to have universal coverage of features in these languages. </div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">For example, I cite pointers in Swift: while UnsafePointer exists, one would be hard-pressed to choose to use it for code involving significant pointer manipulation over the equivalent C code - the C code is much more terse, and in the domain of unsafe pointer juggling the C that terseness actually can make the code more understandable. We have the benefit of letting C be good at what C was made for, and having that C code talk to Swift. The language doesn't need “Pure Swift” in the way a cross-platform distribution language like Java needs “Pure Java”.</div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class=""><div class="">Keep in mind that this is only (fully) true on Apple platforms; it’s my understanding that the open-source version of Swift does not include the Objective-C bridge, with its bridging headers and all that jazz. Therefore, interop with C code is probably limited to calling things from libraries.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Charles</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>