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Apple has been highly ambitious for Swift, the powerful and intuitive programming language it created for macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, and more. The popularity of Swift is growing as writing code in this modern language is interactive, the syntax is concise and expressive. Swift code produces software that is fluid and runs fast. It is important to hire a dedicated Swift developer if you are looking to leverage the features of this modern programming language.
- Launched in 2014, Swift connected with developers and quickly became a success story.
- Swift has taken Objective-C, the previous programming language for iOS apps, in terms of usage. Uber, Airbnb, Square, meditation app Calm, and nearly 500,000+ apps on the App Store partially written in Swift language.
- Developers prefer Swift because it’s fast, efficient, and easy to understand — with an appeal for both established developers, and novices brand-new to the craft.
- Swift breaks stereotypes set by Apple: While the company is well-known for its confidentiality and proprietary control, Swift is an open-source project, meaning developers can customize.
History of Swift
A Group of Apple developers, including Lattner, started working on Swift in 2010 before Apple officially launched it in 2014. Several indie developers and startups quickly joined the bandwagon to experiment with Swift’s features, like reduced crashes and concise syntax. Swift comes across as a natural evolution of Objective-C. Swift was built to be a clear, concise language that was both powerful and easy to understand.
Why Developers prefer Swift: Features of Swift
Modern
Swift is mainly the result of the most advanced research on programming languages, with decades of experience building Apple platforms.
Designed for Safety
One of the primary advantages of Swift is the elimination of entire classes of unsafe code. Variables are initialized before use, arrays and integers are analyzed for overflow, memory is managed, and enforcement of exclusive access to safeguards against programming mistakes.
Fast and Powerful
Ever since its inception, Swift was built to be fast with high-performance LLVM compiler technology. Swift code is optimized into native code to leverage modern hardware.
Great First Language
For that exploring career opportunity as a developer, Swift was designed to be the first language to open new horizons in the world of programming.
Source and Binary Compatibility
With Swift 5, you don’t have to alter any of your Swift 4 code to use the new version of the compiler. On the other hand, you can start using the new compiler and migrate at your own speed, taking advantage of all-new Swift 5 features, one module at any given time. And Swift 5 also offers binary compatibility for apps.
Open Source
It is open-source developed at Swift.org, with source code, a bug tracker, forums, and regular development for everyone.
Dynamic Community
This community of developers, both inside Apple as well as hundreds of outside contributors, work together to make Swift more amazing.
Playgrounds and Read-Eval-Print-Loop (REPL)
Swift Playgrounds for iPad, playgrounds in Xcode make Swift code very interactive and engaging. Type a line of code and the result will come across immediately.
Package Manager
Swift Package Manager is a comprehensive single cross-platform tool to build, operate, test and package Swift libraries and executables. This is the best way to distribute libraries and source code to the Swift community.
Objective-C Interoperability
Swift code is interoperable with already existing Objective-C files in the same project providing complete access to Objective-C API, making it easy to use and adapt.
Resources of Swift
- Swift Sandbox: If you want to learn Swift from scratch, this is one of the most effective resources. It allows us to write the first 1000 lines of Swift code, as well as get automated feedback from our exercise platform. WeHeartSwift.com has a suite of tips, links, discussions, and short tutorials with a beginner course coming soon.
- Medium — Medium is an online publishing platform focused on finding compelling ideas, knowledge, and perspectives. This platform has several blogs about Swift development and best practices for the app development process.
- Swift Development with Visual Studio Code – Visual Studio Code (VSCode) A cross-platform text and source code editor from Microsoft which is considered the most exciting open-source project today, with regular updates from hundreds of contributors.
- GitHub’s Swift Repositories — If you love open-source code, you can track trending Swift repositories on GitHub to get ideas, unique perspectives, and produce great code. This resource is aimed to help the Swift community.
- O’Reilly Media Swift Books — O’Reilly Media Swift book involves titles including several books related to Swift, iOS app development, and more
- Packt Publishing Swift Books — Swift-centric book titles include “Swift Essentials,” “Playing with Swift,” and “Xcode 6 Essentials,” as well as titles “Learning Swift” and “Mastering Swift” coming soon.
- The Swift Language YouTube Playlist — It is a voluminous, multi-source, 250+ YouTube video playlist about Swift programming.
- iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide gives essential concepts, tools, and techniques for developing iOS applications. This book provides the know-how and the confidence you need to tackle iOS projects of your own
Conclusion
Swift is the future of iOS app development. It’s not difficult to imagine a not-so-distant future where Apple begins slowly phasing out Objective-C, much like Google phased out Java in favor of Kotlin. To stay ahead in this evolution, it’s crucial to hire iOS app developer in India who can expertly navigate the shift and create cutting-edge iOS applications.
