The Apple WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) 2014 finally kicked off on the 2nd of June, 2014 in San Francisco with one thousand Apple engineers and five thousand developers in attendance. The biggest news from the Apple WWDC so far has been the introduction of a new programming language that is to replace the 2 decade old Objective-C. This new language has been branded Swift to denote its quick nature, quicker than the now old Objective-C.
Now, this is huge news not just for iOS developers, but also for the end user of Apple apps as well as those who sell and market them. Here are a few points about what Swift is all about.
What is Swift?
Swift is a totally new object oriented programming language, developed by Apple for the iOS and OS X operating systems. The new language is built using the LLVM compiler and runtime that was included in the Xcode 6 beta and is also utilized in Objective-C. While Swift can be compiled in combination with Objective-C, it is a completely new language which means iOS app developers will need to pick up the skill to code using Swift.
What makes Swift special?
For starters, the fact that it is Apple’s new coding language is quite enough to make Swift special. For another, Swift has been introduced with the idea to make an iOS developer’s life easier by eradicating the baggage of Objective-C and introducing faster, cleaner and smarter lines of code. In short, Swift will help developers by eliminating several categories of the common programming errors that most developers have to deal with.
How will Swift effect iOS apps?
According to Apple, Swift is an improvement over Objective-C is several key areas, including speed, security and stability. The demo at the WWDC revealed that Swift is 3.9 times faster than Python, whereas Objective-C is only 2.8 times faster. Apart from speed, Swift lends a dynamic nature to iOS app development by allowing developers to apply their code to the product in real time and viewing the changes.
So, Objective-C is dead?
Well, not quite. What makes Swift so developer friendly is that it can work alongside Objective-C. So if you have been developing an iOS app over the past few months, you can switch to Swift and write the new code to work alongside your old one. Moreover, developers can also continue to utilize Cocoa and Cocoa Touch as Swift is compatible with both.
To Swift or not to Swift; Verdict?
Judging by the general consensus, Swift seems to have been accepted by a large part of the developer community to be a good thing. Yes, developers will now have to learn an entirely new language from scratch; however this drawback is far less significant in light of the several advantages offered by the new programming language. Swift offers developers with new ways to write faster, cleaner and more secure code, which will ultimately mean better, faster and more secure iOS apps.
What remains to be seen now, is if Swift will live up to all the promises it offers and revolutionize the Apple line of products or not. For those wishing to see a live example of Swift, the Apple has released an app for the WWDC written using Swift.