Recently announced on the swift-evolution mailing list, the Swift ABI Stability Manifesto aims to be a compilation of all concerns that need to be addressed before Swift’s ABI can be declared stable.
The goal of ABI stability has two main parts, writes Apple engineer Michael Ilseman , author of the document:
In particular, Ilseman identifies six areas where work needs to be done:
ABI stability is one of the top-priority features planned for Swift 4 and is crucial for third-party framework developers. As InfoQ reported , ABI stability did not make it into Swift 3 due to the impossibility of defining some aspects of the language that needed to be defined before locking down the ABI. In a recent interview for the Accidental Tech podcast , Swift creator and former Apple engineer Chris Lattner stated that ABI stability is not as important as it might seem for app developers, but “it is really important for Apple” and a key factor for Swift adoption inside of the organization:
The Swift team itself has specific goals they need to achieve before there can be truly, across-the-board adoption at Apple. ABI stability is the number one thing that prevents framework developers, for example, from adopting Swift. That’s a really important thing. That’s one of the reasons it’s always a really high priority.
In actuality, it is still not entirely clear whether Swift 4 ABI will be declared stable or not. This could be a consequence of the sheer amount of work ABI stability entails and of the fact that it may be not the most important thing for the Swift community, says Lattner.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, at some point, they decide that focusing on that is more important than nailing ABI stability in Swift 4.
Among the higher-level priorities for the community, Lattner singles out making the compiler more reliable, having better error messages, speeding up compile times, and making Swift scale better to large projects.

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Don’t be quick to write off Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony , despite the latest round of disappointing earnings.
At least that’s what analysts were suggesting, even as the company saw a 54.3 percent on-year decline in operating income to 92.4 billion yen ($820.32 million) in the October-December quarter, leading Sony to cut its full-year outlook on Thursday.
“Most people would look at the headlines and might have gotten confused, but the underlying profitability is very, very strong,” Atul Goyal, an equity analyst at Jefferies, told CNBC’s ” Squawk Box ” on Friday.
The market seemed to have taken note as Sony shares jumped 6 percent to 3,571 yen Friday morning in Tokyo .
Sony cut its forecast for operating income by 30 billion yen from its November predictions to 240 billion yen for the full fiscal year ending Mar. 31.
A key reason behind Sony’s unimpressive quarterly headline numbers, and the cut in outlook, is a 112.1 billion yen non-cash goodwill impairment charge for its struggling Columbia Pictures unit announced a few days before the earnings. Sony bought Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989.
Sony also revised its expectations on future profitability of its motion pictures business due to the recent performances of its home entertainment business which, the company said, was facing an “acceleration of market decline. ”
“There is no cash loss. What they are telling you is this business needs to be fixed,” Goyal said.
He pointed out that Sony’s struggles in the motion picture business are not unique to the Japanese company; other major production companies such as Paramount are also struggling, in part due to Disney ‘s efforts to consolidate big, blockbuster franchises under its banner, according to Goyal.
Sony’s standout performers in the third-quarter results were the game and network services business and semiconductors.
The game and network services saw a 5.2 percent on-year increase in sales due to higher software sales of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) and the PlayStation VR which was launched in October last year; that helped to offset some of the impact on PS4 hardware sales as a result of foreign exchange fluctuations.
Semiconductors saw a 27.6 percent on-year increase in operating income to 27.2 billion yen for the quarter, due to a rise in sales of its CMOS image sensor to smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung .
“The volume of sales of image sensors for mobile devices rose sharply…in-house production facilities are running at full-capacity, and the company plans to send more work to contract manufacturers or use the Oita factory if it needs to boost production further,” said Nomura analyst Yu Okazaki in a note.
Sony could see further growth in earnings heading into the second half of the calendar year due to increased adoption of dual cameras and high-definition front cameras, which use the CMOS sensor, in smartphones, Credit Suisse research analyst Mika Nishimura added in a note.
A potential headwind for Sony is the recent dollar strength against the yen, which Nomura reckoned will have a negative impact on the company’s hardware business such as TVs and smartphones. But the bank said in the research note the impact can be limited if Sony sticks to its margin-oriented business strategy.
Analysts also said Sony’s other business segments, including music, mobile gaming and TV channels, were also performing well. With another year to go before the conclusion of their three-year mid-term strategy plan, announced in fiscal 2015 and with the aim of achieving 500 billion yen in operating profit by March, 2018, Sony still has some leeway before it is expected to deliver strong numbers.
“The management is doing very cleverly all the writedowns, all the losses, all the bad businesses – they are either exiting, booking losses or trying to fix them. They’re looking very good from here onward,” said Goyal, adding most of the bad news was already factored into the stock price.

© Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/sony-earnings-underlying-business-look-solid-despite-112-billion-yen-writedown-analysts-say.html
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Domino’s – the popular pizza delivery service – has updated its Facebook Messenger chatbot to support full menu orders. The update arrives just days ahead of the highly anticipated Super Bowl event, which has historically been one of the top five busiest days for the company.
Customers can strike up a conversation with the chatbot (nicknamed ‘Dom’) by sending it any message. The update also means users no longer require their Facebook profile to be linked to the Domino’s website, unlike the company’s service it offers on Twitter. As of yet, the only accepted payment method is cash.
The company remains on top of its game when it comes to rethinking the order process – leaving other food delivery competitors yet to have a slice. We recently reported on Domino’s drone delivery success , which has started delivering pizzas to a limited group of customers in New Zealand. There have also been signs of testing a pizza delivery robot , an autonomous vehicle capable of carrying an order right up to a customer’s door.
Whilst not quite as flashy, this chatbot update hopes to make the ordering process easier for thousands of hungry fans. After all, Domino’s sold enough pizzas to stretch across 4,400 football fields during last year’s event.
Source: Domino’s via SlashGear | Chatbot conversation image via PRNewswire

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