Swift as a Godot Scripting Language

[atlasapplications]

It seems that in SwiftGodot's current state it could be viable to use Swift as a scripting language, but compared to C# and GDScript the workflow is slower and a bit more convoluted (especially when you're not using Mac) since this plugin technically isn't implemented as a scripting language.

If you look at GDScript and C# these are scripting languages because you can create a Node and attach one of these scripts to the Node to add functionality. However, for SwiftGodot's implementation, it works closer to a C++ module where you're actually extending the engine and that newly created Node is what's added to the scene.

This approach is great when adding native functionality, which seems to be the focus of GDExtension. However, as a scripting language, there's an unnecessary loss in efficiency since this workflow requires more steps. One way I think of it is that GDExtension enables the creation of native plugins in C++ and GodotSwift enables the creation of native plugins in Swift.

So, I'm wondering if there's any desire for Swift being implemented as a scripting language?

An excellent example of GDExtension being used to create a new scripting language is Godot Orchestrator. Perhaps this could be considered an enhancement and Swift would become a proper scripting language and still provide an avenue for extending the engine? This appears to be on the roadmap for C# but in reverse with it currently being a scripting language and adding the ability for creating plugins using GDExtension in a future Godot version.

[Qws]

Swift as an (official) scripting language in Godot, same level as C# or even GDscript, would be so great.

[JacobSyndeo]

+1 for this. I really hope we can see it happen someday; I'd love that!

[GuyWithBag]

+1 since I think swift is the most similar to GDScript with typing features

[migueldeicaza]

I really need to sit down and re-bootstrap this effort.

I think the big thing that stopped me last time was that I really wanted to have the Swift plugin be "global" rather than be local to the project, so I did not have to struggle between the Swift plugin and the generated plugin by the user.

[migueldeicaza]

Btw, for those curious, the old branch that does this is on

https://github.com/migueldeicaza/SwiftGodot/tree/editor-plugin