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  5. GNU Bash vs Swift

GNU Bash vs Swift

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Swift
Swift
Stacks21.9K
Followers13.6K
Votes1.3K
GNU Bash
GNU Bash
Stacks1.4K
Followers723
Votes8

GNU Bash vs Swift: What are the differences?

Introduction:
When comparing GNU Bash and Swift, there are key differences that differentiate these two programming languages.

1. **Syntax and Typing**: One of the significant differences between GNU Bash and Swift is their syntax and typing. GNU Bash is a shell scripting language that focuses on executing commands and workflows in command-line environments using simple scripting syntax. On the other hand, Swift is a general-purpose, compiled programming language used for developing iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS applications. Swift has a more complex and structured syntax compared to Bash, with strong typing and advanced features for building robust applications.

2. **Purpose and Usage**: GNU Bash is primarily designed for system administration tasks, automation, and scripting in Unix-like operating systems. It is commonly used for writing shell scripts to automate routine tasks or manage system resources. In contrast, Swift is geared towards application development, especially for Apple platforms. It offers modern language features that enable developers to create high-performance, scalable applications with a strong emphasis on safety and reliability.

3. **Concurrency and Parallelism**: Another key difference between Bash and Swift is their support for concurrency and parallelism. Bash is not well-suited for handling concurrent tasks or parallel processing due to its single-threaded nature and limited support for multithreading. In contrast, Swift provides robust support for concurrent programming through features like Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) and asynchronous programming, making it suitable for building highly performant and scalable applications that leverage multiple CPU cores efficiently.

4. **Tooling and Ecosystem**: The tooling and ecosystem surrounding GNU Bash and Swift are significantly different. Bash comes pre-installed on most Unix-based systems and has a wide range of command-line utilities and tools that integrate seamlessly with the operating system. In comparison, Swift requires installation of Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment (IDE), and relies on App Store and third-party libraries for additional packages and frameworks to extend its functionality.

5. **Portability and Platform Support**: GNU Bash is highly portable and runs on various Unix-like operating systems, including Linux, macOS, and BSD. It provides consistent behavior across different platforms, making it a popular choice for writing cross-platform shell scripts. On the other hand, Swift is tightly integrated with Apple's platforms and ecosystem, limiting its portability to iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. While efforts are underway to make Swift more widely available, its primary focus remains on Apple's proprietary platforms.

6. **Learning Curve and Community**: The learning curve and community support for GNU Bash and Swift differ significantly. Bash is relatively easy to learn for beginners, especially for those familiar with command-line interfaces and shell scripting concepts. It has a large user base and extensive online resources for troubleshooting and getting started. Swift, being a more advanced language, may have a steeper learning curve for newcomers, but it benefits from a vibrant community of developers, Apple's official documentation, and active support for learning resources like tutorials, courses, and forums.

In Summary, the key differences between GNU Bash and Swift lie in their syntax and typing, purpose and usage, concurrency and parallelism support, tooling and ecosystem, platform support, and learning curve and community engagement.

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Advice on Swift, GNU Bash

Justin
Justin

Open Source Program Manager at Reblaze

Aug 15, 2019

Review

If you have a file (demo.txt) that has 3 columns:

Column-1    Column-2    Column-3
Row-1a      Row-2a      Row-3a         
Row-1b      Row-2b      Row-3b
Row-1c      Row-2c      Row-3c
Row-1d      Row-2d      Row-3d
Row-1e      Row-2e      Row-3e

and you want to only view the first column of the file in your CLI, run the following:

awk {'print $1'} demo.txt

Column-1
Row-1a
Row-1b
Row-1c
Row-1d
Row-1e

If you want to print the second column of demo.txt, just replace $1 with $2

96.4k views96.4k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Swift
Swift
GNU Bash
GNU Bash

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

The Bourne Again SHell is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh). It is intended to conform to the IEEE POSIX P1003.2/ISO 9945.2 Shell and Tools standard.

-
Command line editing; Unlimited size command history; Job Control; Shell Functions and Aliases; Indexed arrays of unlimited size; Integer arithmetic in any base from two to sixty-four
Statistics
Stacks
21.9K
Stacks
1.4K
Followers
13.6K
Followers
723
Votes
1.3K
Votes
8
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 259
    Ios
  • 180
    Elegant
  • 126
    Not Objective-C
  • 107
    Backed by apple
  • 93
    Type inference
Cons
  • 6
    Must own a mac
  • 2
    Memory leaks are not uncommon
  • 1
    Is a lot more effort than lua to make simple functions
  • 1
    Its classes compile to roughly 300 lines of assembly
  • 1
    Very irritatingly picky about things that’s
Pros
  • 3
    Customizable
  • 3
    Powerful scripting language
  • 2
    Widely adopted
  • 0
    Cross platform
Cons
  • 1
    Too Slow
Integrations
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
Codecov
Codecov

What are some alternatives to Swift, GNU Bash?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

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