I wholeheartedly disagree and counterpoint that all other String APIs are wrong (bold statement, I know). Accessing a random index of a String is a complex (slow) operation, and as such, should be reflected as complex in the code, especially since people usually think it is not complex.

If you want an array of UInt8, just use that.

The part about the regex I agree with. They are slow and that’s a shame. I do not personally use regex much though, and don’t think it should be done much in prod either, unless there are no other options, but that does not excuse a poor implementation.

Regarding the domain, I recognize it seems to have difficulties escaping the “native iOS/macOS apps,” but IMHO it should not. It is a language that is simple to use, with a reasonable memory handling default (ARC), though it can also use the memory ownership model of rust. Generally speaking using Swift is possible everywhere. I use it personally for an app (native and web front, and back), and it is extremely cool.

Its ecosystem is also becoming quite interesting. Most of the libs are from Apple, yes, but they are also very qualitative.

All in all I think it’s shame Swift is not more used overall in the industry.

Nope nope nope.

I have to agree strongly with my sibling commenter. Every other language gets it horribly wrong.

In app dev (Swift's primary use case), strings are most often semantically sequences of graphemes. And, if you at all care about computer science, array subscripting must be O(1).

Swift does the right thing for both requirements. Beautiful.

OK, yes, maybe they should add a native `nthCharater(n:)`, but that's nitpicking. It's a one-liner to add yourself.

I use it also for a server of mine (and generally any new project I have).

I have also a few open-source projects in Swift[1][2], but none known.

[1] https://github.com/xcode-actions

[2] https://github.com/Frizlab?tab=repositories&q=&type=&languag...