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Swift

Table of content

Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language developed by Apple for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, vision pro and beyond. It was introduced at Apple's 2014 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) to provide a more modern language that is also more safe, fast, and expressive compared to Objective-C, which had been the main programming language used for Apple development.
 

Features of Swift
Here are some of the main features that set Swift apart:
Safety: Swift places a high emphasis on code safety, offering features like optional types, strong static typing, and error handling to catch and manage runtime errors effectively.
Performance: Designed with modern hardware in mind, Swift aims to offer excellent performance close to that of C and C++.
Readability: Swift has a clear, readable syntax which is designed to be clear and concise, as well as expressive.
Modern Language Constructs: Swift incorporates modern programming language theory concepts, like closures, generics, and type inference, to make the language expressive.
Rich Standard Library: Swift includes a rich set of native data types and collections, as well as other essential libraries and frameworks.
Interoperability: You can run Swift code alongside Objective-C and access Cocoa frameworks, which makes migration more straightforward.
Open Source: Swift is open-source, allowing a community of developers to contribute to its development.
 

Development Environment

  • Xcode: The primary IDE for Swift development, providing a rich set of tools for building iOS/macOS apps.
  • Swift Playgrounds: An iPad and macOS app that offers an interactive Swift coding environment.
  • Third-party IDEs: Some other environments like AppCode also support Swift.

Package Management
Swift uses the Swift Package Manager for dependency management, although CocoaPods and Carthage are also commonly used in the ecosystem.
Community and Ecosystem
Since becoming open-source, Swift has seen a lot of community contributions and has started to be used for server-side development, machine learning, and even scripting.