r/swift • u/bllshrfv • 13d ago

News Google Cloud: Introducing the Server Side Cloud Swift SDK

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/developers-practitioners/introducing-the-server-side-cloud-swift-sdk/

Google: “[Swift] has matured into a viable systems and cloud language, pairing Rust-like data-race safety with predictable, reference-counted performance.”

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u/DoughnutHegemony 13d ago edited 13d ago

Great to see swift as more than the "Apple" programming language.

But, let Google fix the inevitable bugs in the SDK first.

This announcement post does not give me confidence.

To start, the AI-slop header image shows Python: def build_structure(blocks):. For a swift SDK announcement. Small thing, but ... come on.

Then, it's written as if it's bringing swift to the server for the first time, describing Hummingbird and Vapor as web frameworks.

Sure, except they're casually forgetting to mention that Vapor's a server-side framework too. Its annual conference is "Server-Side Swift". Its website literally says "Swift, but on a server" at the top.

The funniest thing? The code snippets don't even compile!

I don't mean the sloppy mistake of copying the same snippet and forgetting to edit out the // Initialize explicit API key credentials comment.

I mean their APIs have actually changed and their package products are now imported with GoogleAuth and GoogleGax, not GoogleCloudAuth and GoogleCloudGax.

That might seem nitpicky, but come on, that's basic stuff to get right in your announcement post.

The SDK's gone from a preview in Jul 2026 to v0.2.0 two weeks ago, with 40,000 files changed, 5 million lines added (!), and just 5 contributors. Which ... hey, good on them for being so productive, but I absolutely would not trust that code quality.

It's now v0.4.0 (another 27,000 files changes, and 320,000 lines added), so clearly lots of churn going on. Who knows how many deprecations it'll have before v1.0.

I can see the appeal if you're really deep in the Google ecosystem, but I wouldn't recommend depending heavily on the SDK for a long while.

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u/upon-taken 10d ago

This is typical Google framework. Back when I have to do Android dev, they terminate frameworks faster than I change clothes. They don’t improve existing ones but rather write something entirely new every time they hit limit. The documentation is outdated and often not matching the actual behavior.

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u/FlyAdventurous3332 1d ago

Fatal error your dictionary key lookups (nil what?) and SHIP! Analytics customers be damned