Good on him. As others have said, well-communicated move. He is leaving Swift in an excellent position and has set up an outstanding structure where Swift is way more than just one person. He spent more than 5 years building Swift inside Apple, so I can definitely understand he is ready for his next challenge. Can't wait to see what it is!
This is seemingly quite a different technical skill set to have than his previous position. I'm curious as to whether Tesla wants to also transition to swift for automotive code, or whether Chris Lattner was already involved in apple's car project (project titan).
Either way, a big win for Tesla and quite a loss for Apple.
Tesla's AP is seemingly built ontop of Nvidia hardware, which is programmed using CUDA. CUDA is built ontop of LLVM, which Chris Lattner created. Seems like an obvious fit if you look at it from a purely technology perspective.
Great - maybe he can introduce a new programming language and/or associated tooling to the automotive world. It's quite depressing that all those systems are still built with a subset of C/C++. And often even not the safest subset, when I think about the dozens of variants of custom memory management that I have already seen implemented - with possibilites for OOM everywhere.
Welp... there goes the last of the innovators I admired/followed at Apple.
Edit: perhaps the problem is that you assume I'm just tossing gasoline on the ever-loved and popular rag-on-Apple fire. I have been an active clang/llvm user for 6 years, I have written numerous clang plugins over the years, and I am an active swift developer. Every device I own is made by Apple and has been since 2004. I am genuinely puzzled why this comment is so unpopular (at least, considerably more so than goofy unfounded speculations about what Chris will do next—see above).
Your comment does leave me curious why you don't consider any of the numerous other folks at Apple who have made huge contributions to swift/clang/llvm innovators worth following.
It's not that I don't consider any one else worth following; that's neither what I wrote nor meant. My apologies if that's what came across.
Surely there are tons of talented folk behind the scenes, and I am not disparaging the people that remain employed with Apple. It's simply that they are (to date) invisible to me. That's not surprising.
It's hard to break out as an influential contributor and personality when you are perhaps a quiet hero, humble team member, or hidden behind the branding of a large software corporation.
I think you're projecting. I have bought Apple products because they work best for me in light of other options, but I don't consider them above criticism or reproach.
Calling someone a fanboy is just as old (and frankly, quite silly).
I suspect people don't see it as a quality comment. Generally short or insubstantial comments receive a more positive response when the tone is positive. Negative, insubstantial comments tend to be downvoted.
(I didn't up or down vote, I'm just echoing how it reads to me)
Edit: Had your original comment included that extra backstory/justification, it surely wouldn't have been hammered with downvotes. Without it, it just reads like snark.
maybe because of how negative it is. The idea that there is not 1 innovator at apple is non-sense. A lot of misses lately, but stuff like AirPods show there is still lots of talent at apple
I don't use or follow Swift, but Chris was also instrumental in the development of LLVM, which has become hugely important in all sorts of areas. Has he still been active in that while working on Swifty stuff, or have other people taken over there already?
I went to the LLVM Developers' Meeting this year, and Chris seems still very much involved in LLVM (at least from a management perspective -- he serves on the board of the LLVM Foundation).
Chris has been nothing but a pleasure to interact with every time we've met. Best of luck in his new endeavors. Really excited to see what he'll pursue next. :)
Let's start speculating what he might do instead. I have a hunch that this might pursue some Bret Victor-esque product maybe something like Swift Playgrounds for the iPad but less educational and more dev oriented. But I'm basing that on relatively nothing.
If my understanding of the universe is correct, he's going to join a really high paying start-up gig working on a "revolutionary" new email app that's basically slightly cooler than what we already have now, and then Apple will acquire them in 3 years, and he'll get a big payout, and then retire, which means start his own start up making a revolutionary new iOS app for teaching kids to code.
That doesn't seem to be his style. He's been doing developer tools for a while now and I can't imagine that he'd be switching. And I think that he has better options than an email startup. LLVM is one of the most important software projects ever.
Just wild speculation backed by absolutely nothing, but it would be pretty interesting if he joined Andy Rubin's startup. It's attracting some really excellent talent.
Readit News
Either way, a big win for Tesla and quite a loss for Apple.
Edit: perhaps the problem is that you assume I'm just tossing gasoline on the ever-loved and popular rag-on-Apple fire. I have been an active clang/llvm user for 6 years, I have written numerous clang plugins over the years, and I am an active swift developer. Every device I own is made by Apple and has been since 2004. I am genuinely puzzled why this comment is so unpopular (at least, considerably more so than goofy unfounded speculations about what Chris will do next—see above).
Surely there are tons of talented folk behind the scenes, and I am not disparaging the people that remain employed with Apple. It's simply that they are (to date) invisible to me. That's not surprising.
It's hard to break out as an influential contributor and personality when you are perhaps a quiet hero, humble team member, or hidden behind the branding of a large software corporation.
I don't care for this part, fanboyism was old in the 90's.
Calling someone a fanboy is just as old (and frankly, quite silly).
(I didn't up or down vote, I'm just echoing how it reads to me)
Edit: Had your original comment included that extra backstory/justification, it surely wouldn't have been hammered with downvotes. Without it, it just reads like snark.
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;-)
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