Every person who wants to learn programming is wondering what language to learn? Moreover, they want the language to be universal and suitable for absolutely all purposes. This, of course, does not happen. A programming language is, first of all, a tool for achieving a specific goal. And any programmer in the "arsenal" is better to have several tools. But the choice of the first programming language plays an important role, because if you choose it incorrectly, programming may seem complicated and incomprehensible. But at the same time, the first language should be promising. These include: Python, Swift, Lua, C #. I would also like to draw attention to the Swift language. He will be discussed in this article.
About language
The Swift programming language was developed by Apple and released in the summer of 2014. It replaced the Objective-C and C languages, which are already outdated, and it became inconvenient to work with them.
Is Swift good? Of course! The developers made it as understandable, beautiful, easy to learn as a scripting programming language, for example, Python. Simplified many processes that took a long time in Objective-C. For example, the memory management process has become easier with the help of automatic link counting.
By the way, Switf itself is very similar to its predecessor, Objective-C. For example, some operators have not changed at all. These languages are compatible with each other. Another advantage of the Swift programming language is that the result can be seen in real time without compiling the code and not running the application.
Where are the prospects used?
So where is this new Swift programming language used? As mentioned above, it was developed by Apple. Accordingly, it is used to develop applications for the iOS operating system. In general, the development of mobile applications, and even more so under iOS, is a very promising area. But you need to learn quickly to take a place in the market.
The fact is that in the market of mobile applications for Android, it is already almost difficult to get to the top. Previously, indie developers who did not have a budget for promotion had a good chance of gaining popularity, but now everything has changed. In the top are those applications whose developers invest hundreds of thousands a day on promotions. Even if you manage to get into the top, then it’s almost impossible to hold out there for more than one day. As for the iOS application market, here it is more or less. You can often notice that those games that have absolutely not succeeded in Google Play are in the tops and recommendations in the AppStore. Therefore, while the market is not completely occupied, you need to have time to take its place. Well, the Swift language will help.
Language cons
The Swift language has a lot of advantages, but there are also disadvantages. For example, the development of programs. Although this language is simple and beautiful, it will not work to compile code on it using the Windows operating system.
The fact is that Swift runs exclusively on the Mac system, and given the prices of such laptops, this feature is not available to everyone. Of course, you can write code on Windows, and find a laptop on a Mac to compile, however, this is not very convenient. You can also use a virtual machine, for example, VirtualBox, and try to put Hackintosh there. But to guarantee work in this case is impossible.
In order to make it convenient to write code, you need a code editor, debugging tools, iphone simulators and more. Apple itself provides for this an Xcode development environment in which everything is already there, however, again, you need an Apple laptop. If you don’t have the opportunity to buy such a laptop, but you want to develop it, then you can use the virtual machine and the Hackintosh system. Well, now how you make money from your products, you can buy a laptop from Apple.
First program
The first program for beginning programmers in any language is the one that displays Hello World, which translates as "Hello World!". We will write the same program in Swift, it will look like this:
println("Hello World")
As you can see, only one small operator is used to display text on the screen. By the way, Python and Objective-C developers should be familiar with this operator, since it is no different. Since the Swift programming language appeared relatively recently, most of the documentation on it is in English, but with each passing day more and more articles appear with translation into Russian.
This article examined the Swift programming language, its pros and cons. Developing on it is very interesting and easy. As the first, for training, it is perfect. When the Swift programming language appeared, many were distrustful of it, but some time passed, and it proved to be a powerful tool for developing applications for iOS.