Swift Concurrency Roadmap
Unlike a manifesto, which might describe multiple possible directions and in some cases unlikely directions, this document describes a single intended plan for tackling concurrency in Swift.
The end state of these changes will:
- make asynchronous programming convenient and clear at the point of use,
- provide a standard set of language tools and techniques that Swift developers can follow,
- improve the performance of asynchronous code through better knowledge at compile time, and
- eliminate data races and deadlocks in the same way Swift eliminates memory unsafety.
The introduction of these features will span multiple Swift releases. Features will be introduced in broadly two phases. The first phase introduces the
asyncsyntax and actor types; this will allow users to organize their code around actors in a way that will reduce, but not eliminate, data races. The second phase will enforce full actor isolation, eliminating data races, along with number of features to allow efficient and ergonomic interoperation of actors needed to make that isolation practical.
I’m still digesting all of this. My first impression is that it looks good, though some have expressed concerns about the plan.
See also:
- Asynchronous functions
- Structured concurrency
- Actors & actor isolation
- Interoperability with Objective-C
Previously:
