What is swift?
Swift is a general-purpose, open-source programming language designed and developed by Apple. This language is influenced by Python making it intuitive and fast. It is built using a modern approach to safety, software design pattern, and performance. The main object behind developing Swift is to create a language for developing a wide range of uses from developing system programming to desktop and mobile applications, and scaling up to cloud services. Most importantly, Swift is designed to make writing and maintaining programs easier for programmers. But the most obvious way to write Swift code must be:
Expressive
Swift offers a syntax that is joyous to use with all the modern features developers expect. With language advancements, the Swift community is constantly working to make Swift even better.
Safe
Swift is a type-safe language, which means the language will help you to be clear about the type of values your code can work with. Swift opts for safety which means clarity saves time in the long run.
Fast
Swift was introduced as a replacement for C-based languages like C, C++, and Objective C. Swift is a language whose performance is not only fast but also doesn’t require cleaning up later. There are a lot of languages with unique features but being fast with bare clean-up is rare.
Some well-known facts about Swift are
- 1
Swift is an open-source project with a sizable development community
- 2
It is faster, safer, and easier to read and write than other programming languages
- 3
Swift features a more efficient memory management system and supports dynamic libraries
Why choose swift as your preffered language
Swift is a language that is continuously evolving and the community continues to grow swiftly. The source code is easily available on GitHub, making it easy for anyone to access. This multi-paradigm, open-source, general-purpose programming language id is used for iOS, iPad, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS development.
Swift has powerful generics that allow you to write flexible, reusable functions and types
It automatically prevents unsafe behavior from happening in your code and manages memory’s safety
Swift offers native error handling that supports throwing, catching, propagating, and manipulating errors at runtime
Because of its lightweight closure syntax, Swift enables a clutter-free syntax and clear style
The Swift package manager is a cross-platform tool to build, run, and test the package Swift libraries and executable
With the help of Automatic Reference Counting, Swift manages and tracks our application’s memory usage. This allows us to be free from the worry of memory usage management
Swift’s flexible enumerations support pattern matching and can have payloads
The external interface in Swift is made available for the other code to use while defining a structure and class in a single file
Swift has binary compatibility for your applications that will use the latest version of the library in the operating system and the code can run without compiling
Benefits of selecting swift over other languages
Swift is a modern, human-friendly language with a simple syntax which means that the speed of the coding is faster than in other languages. The demand for Swift developers is increasing as Swift is 2.6 times faster than Objective C according to Apple. Overall, Swift is a more desirable language when compared to Objective C as it is safer, faster, interactive, and intuitive. Let’s look at some of the major benefits of the Swift programming language:
Easy to Learn
Swift is designed for beginners to use Swift Playgrounds- an application for iPad that makes it easy to get started with Swift coding. You can even learn to build Xcode applications easily.
Fast and Powerful
Swift uses LLVM compiler technology (with toolchain technology used to develop frontend and backend) along with its standard library that makes coding intuitive and efficient
Modern
Swift APIs are easy to read and maintain; modules eliminate headers and namespaces whereas inferred types make your code cleaner and less prone to errors.
Cross-Platform
Swift supports multiple Apple development platforms like Linux, Ubuntu, and Windows
Dynamic Libraries
These libraries exist outside of the development code and are uploaded when necessary. When needed these libraries are integrated into every device release.
Interoperability
Swift has Objective-C interoperability which means that Swift code can run and live alongside existing Objective-C files. Swift has complete access to Objective-C APIs.
Large Community
Swift has one of the most active and rich open-source communities that can help you solve queries you may face while coding. There is also a dedicated team of developers who are constantly working to enhance the functionalities of Swift.