Blink them to death using Embedded Swift
summary
Apple’s experimental Embedded Swift compiles a constrained Swift subset to run on tiny MCUs (example: nRF52840 dev kit), aiming to cut runtime and binary size to fit 256 KB RAM / 1 MB flash vs typical 42 MB / 8 GB device targets. Build uses nightly Swift snapshots, the board toolchain (Zephyr / nRF Connect SDK), C bridging headers, CMake/Cake and linker scripts; useful helpers include Swift MMIO and Swift 6’s type throws. Demos: a Blinky LED and a traffic‑light state machine compile and run after resolving a PIC/linker hiccup.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Introduction and speaker background
- 2:57What is embedded Swift
- 8:17Hardware and toolchain setup
- 13:39First embedded Swift demo
- 14:23Setting up development environment
- 15:28Rewriting embedded code in Swift
- 20:23Debugging linker issues
- 21:07Final demo and traffic light project
- 22:34Memory-mapped I/O and hardware abstraction
- 25:48What embedded Swift is not
- 26:10Pain points and challenges
- 28:20Why use embedded Swift
- 29:24Real-world usage and projects
- 30:30Future possibilities for embedded Swift
- 31:14Getting started with embedded Swift
- 32:02Q&A session
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