I think it's a bust

The movie Draft Day doesn’t really have any business being good, but somehow it is anyway. I don’t even like football that much — who has time for it when there’s basketball? — but I’ve now seen this movie several times and love it. The movie actually gets better instead of worse on multiple viewings.

It also has a number of memorable lines. One of them is this, said by Kevin Costner’s character about the college football star who everyone thinks is the next greatest thing: “I think he’s a bust.” Five simple words that undo all momentum.

And unfortunately that’s still how I feel about Swift. I’m following Brent’s blog posts about learning Swift and I’m trying to come to terms with whether to adopt the language, and I finally got it. I already have a capable quarterback in Objective-C, and I’m not ready to rebuild my roster yet, risking everything on a young language with so much promise but less real-world success.

No matter how much Swift has improved, no matter how much everyone fawns over it, I still can’t shake the feeling that it’s a hype that someone else’s team needs. For me, it won’t end up solving the problems I have when building apps. For me, it’s a bust.

Manton Reece @manton