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  5. Swift vs WebAssembly

Swift vs WebAssembly

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Swift
Swift
Stacks21.9K
Followers13.6K
Votes1.3K
WebAssembly
WebAssembly
Stacks223
Followers218
Votes0
GitHub Stars8.2K
Forks818

Swift vs WebAssembly: What are the differences?

Introduction: When comparing Swift and WebAssembly, it is important to understand the key differences in their functionalities and use cases.

  1. Execution Environment: Swift is a programming language primarily used for iOS and macOS app development, while WebAssembly is a binary instruction format, not specific to any programming language, designed to be executed in a web browser.

  2. Compilation Process: Swift code is typically compiled to native machine code that runs directly on the target device, while WebAssembly code is compiled to a portable, compact, and efficient binary format that can be executed on different platforms.

  3. Flexibility: Swift is more suited for developing native applications with access to device-specific features, while WebAssembly is designed for running code in web browsers and providing a standardized execution environment.

  4. Performance: Swift is generally faster in terms of execution speed due to its direct compilation to machine code, while WebAssembly, although fast, may have slight performance overheads compared to native code.

  5. Interoperability: Swift has strong interoperability with Objective-C and C libraries, allowing for seamless integration with existing codebases, while WebAssembly allows code written in different languages to interact within the same execution environment.

  6. Security: Swift offers memory safety features such as optionals and automatic reference counting to prevent common programming errors, while WebAssembly provides a sandboxed environment with limited access to system resources for enhanced security.

In Summary, Swift and WebAssembly differ in their execution environments, compilation processes, flexibility, performance, interoperability, and security features.

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Detailed Comparison

Swift
Swift
WebAssembly
WebAssembly

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.

It is an open standard that defines a portable binary code format for executable programs, and a corresponding textual assembly language, as well as interfaces for facilitating interactions between such programs and their host environment.

-
Efficient and fast; Safe; Open and debuggable; Part of the open web platform
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
8.2K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
818
Stacks
21.9K
Stacks
223
Followers
13.6K
Followers
218
Votes
1.3K
Votes
0
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
    Very irritatingly picky about things that’s
  • 1
    Its classes compile to roughly 300 lines of assembly
  • 1
    Is a lot more effort than lua to make simple functions
Cons
  • 2
    Security issues
Integrations
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
Rust
Rust
C++
C++
C lang
C lang

What are some alternatives to Swift, WebAssembly?

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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