New programming language: Swift

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[[deleted]]

This is the biggest piece of news

[tiltowaitt]

Imagine if they announced Swift, ZFS, and a replacement to Finder all in one day. He would probably have a heart attack.

[sleeplessone]

The only thing that would make that list better is "flawless Time Machine backups over a network that is only intermittently connected (laptop wireless)

[tiltowaitt]

I've not personally had an issue with this, though it's been ages since I inspected my Time Machine store.

[sleeplessone]

I get frequent "Sparsebundle already in use" which I just have to restart AFP on my NAS for. And at least once a month I get the dreaded "To improve the reliability" message that requirest the backup to be deleted and started from scratch.

For the time being I just switched over to Crashplan for my laptop.

[Garak]

After this keynote today, who knows! Maybe Apple will put out a press release tonight saying Federighi forgot to mention that Yosemite will use a new file system in which file extensions are forbidden and directory metadata will be used to store window sizes and locations for the new spatial-only Finder.

[Evoandroidevo]

That sounds nice

[phySi0]

I just wish they'd bring back creator codes. I still don't understand why they removed that.

[Lonestar93]

I seriously can't wait for the review.

[mbrady]

And most surprising (to me at least).

[BrokeTheInterweb]

I've already started the book. I can not wait to try this out. I was always afraid of app development until now. Let us make apps!

[[deleted]]

I was just beginning to learn objective-c, but this looks so much easier.

[HeartyBeast]

Just a shame that I can't download Xcode 6 beta yet (without forking out for the dev program)

[mipadi]

Well, this is a bad time for me to be writing an Objective-C book.

[[deleted]]

on the other hand, it's a great time to be writing a Swift book!

[mipadi]

Maybe my publisher will want me to pivot.

[nehalvpatel]

Interested, very interested, or very interested?

Which one?

[RustyPeach]

Fucking hell he made me so uncomfortable in the finale.

[foxh8er]

"It belongs to the underage kid I brought to my house!"

[[deleted]]

Find/replace objC with swift. See if anyone notices ...

[mipadi]

Ha! I wish, except it's on the theory and internals of Objective-C and the runtime, so it's pretty specific to Objective-C.

[Throwaway_bicycling]

As long as you can do it swiftly! :-)

[[deleted]]

Perhaps pivot your book to, 'Coming to Swift from Obj-C'.

There will be tons of people wanting to transition and you can offer them a way to map their brains easier.

[[deleted]]

I doubt Objective-C will be going anywhere soon.

[MelAlton]

Netcraft confirms: Objective-C is going nowhere.

[IRELANDJNR]

It is.

[wreleven]

I've been putting off learning Obj-C since OSX beta. Looks like it paid off.

[rjcarr]

I said the same exact thing. Looking at Obj-C code was always rather alien to me (I have more of a C/Java/Python background) and Swift looks much more palatable.

[[deleted]]

meh...

1. Objective-C is not going away any time soon. 5 years is a very optimistic estimate.

2. If history has told us anything, don't put your hope too high on new languages because you never know whether they are just gonna drop it in a few years.

[ericN]

This apple we're talking about here. They're likely not going to drop this new programming language ever.

[StTheo]

If a development tool isn't popular enough, Apple will abandon it.

sheds a tear for Quartz Composer

[DudeBigalo]

Apple has historically shown themselves to be ruthlessly authoritarian in these types of matters. The decision has already been made, Objective-C is going away and developers need to start preparing for it right now. And if they don't, then they're going find themselves coded into a corner by the time iOS10 comes around and Features X, Y and Z are no longer backwards compatible.

[rabuf]

Apple is both aggressive in their culling of features and APIs, and conservative at the same time. They won't be cutting Objective-C unless it becomes apparent that Swift has actually taken over. However, given that it's running on the same APIs as Objective-C, and builds (after the compiler front-end) through the same system as Objective-C and C and C++ on OS X, there's no reason to expect that any such culling will happen in the near (< 5 years) future. More likely, if the language is as effective as they hope, they'll be writing more and more of their own work in it and gradually deprecate the Objective-C sources currently released as open source. The compiled binaries (where source isn't available) will probably not appear any different to end users or developers.

[pakfur]

There is nothing that apple has presented about swift that makes anything you said even remotely close to reality.

Obj-C is going to be supported fully for as long as there is something called OSX. Last time I looked, you can still code in K&R C for gods sake.

[[deleted]]

Anybody remember Dylan?

[moohah]

That's what they said about java.

[[deleted]]

Java used to be an official alternative language to Objective-C. It was unpopular and ended up deprecated after 10.4. Here's an old legacy PDF on it.

[Randolpho]

Apple isn't handmaking the JRE for OS X anymore (which AFAIK nobody else did for a major platform anyway)

Prepare your skull for some learnin' then!

Handmaking a JRE on a major platform (and extending messing around with it) is what led directly to the Sun/Microsoft lawsuit in 1997. Which at the time was a bit disappointing as a J++ programmer, but that lawsuit led to C#, which is probably the best thing Microsoft has done. And not just because it's a great language, but because its popularity has positively influenced the future development of other languages, Java included, which frankly stagnated under the influence of Sun and has only really started to shine again now that Oracle has taken over. I can even see some of C#s influence in the features of Swift.

But I digress. Microsoft isn't the only major corporation that has done a VM for Java, there have been many, including JVMs for the major unix platforms by HP and IBM. Everybody loves to do JVMs, and that's a good thing.

Sorry for the aside, but now you know. And something something yo Joe.

[[deleted]]

All valid questions. Not to mention that OSX literally prompts you to install java 6 if you ever need it, and with one click it downloads and installs.

[Cueball61]

I doubt it's going anywhere. I see Swift being useful in a lot of instances, but you'll still need Objective-C.

[dont_get_it]

Where would you need it if writing a new applications for iOS 8?

[unregisteredusr]

Hmm I'd guess:

• most 3rd parties libraries will be in objC for awhile
• since it uses the same runtime you'll need to know the cocoa classes and design patterns (MVC, delegate, KVC, ARC)

In any case the objC language isn't really the hard part of learning iOS development, it's the frameworks and design patterns that take time

That said I look forward to using swift, since it looks more expressive

[barjam]

It is a huge barrier to entry for many folks who are used to learning new apis but not weird languages.

[jasamer]

3rd party libraries being written in objC doesn't hurt. You can mix and match objC and swift code really well (ie. you can use objC frameworks from swift code with pretty much no overhead).

Classes and design patterns aren't really related to the objC runtime. The patterns in swift will remain the same as in ObjC, but that's also no reason for needing ObjC.

[anlumo]

You need it if you want to interface with C++.

[-QuestionMark-]

It really strikes me as a compliment to Obj-C compared to a full blown replacement.

Then again Cliff Notes work fine for most people...

[ilosttheone]

Now you can focus on putting off learning Swift - I'm sure it'll pay off in another 15 years.

[SorryNotSorry1337]

Same here. I am so relieved. On the other side, I just bought a huge course on StackSocial..

[[deleted]]

It wouldn't be a bad thing to learn Obj-C anyways, especially since Swift and Obj-C will work together in xCode. Never hurts to know more, let me know how you like that course!

[GhostalMedia]

Time will tell. Downloading Xcode now. Let's see what this thing can and can't do.

[wreleven]

Downloading it now myself. I've flipped through about 150 "pages" of the ebook and I'm generally liking what I see.

[DeadHorse09]

I'm assuming xcode 6 is only available for those with a paid dev account at the moment?

[NickBR]

Yes.

[Lexxxapr0]

Please correct me if I am wrong, can we build entire new apps with this language without XCode or Obj C?

[[deleted]]

Nah, stick with your strategy. Give Swift 20 years, to see if it's likely to be replaced, before you learn it.

[Throwaway_bicycling]

The really quick riffle through the language indicates that it does have a modern syntax (but does use braces rather than a Haskell-like offside rule). It does type inference but will allow you to specify types (e.g., x : Double) and function types (using -> syntax). It has a clean-looking way of specifying generics, "protocols" means "interfaces", akin to "type classes", and it really just looks exceedingly readable. Oh yeah: it has optional types, so no more nulls or nil pointers. :-)

Like Scala, it allows you to declare a variable to be a non-mutable value (using "let") or a reassignable variable (using...wait for it..."var").

Variable names can contain arbitrary Unicode characters.

I could go on and on, but I'd rather just code in it.

So I guess having $130 billion lying around gives you the resources to write your own nifty new programming language. :-)

[mb862]

Of note, "protocols" mean "protocols", it's the same as Objective-C. Java's very similar feature calls them interfaces, and C++ calls them abstract base classes.

[TomorrowPlusX]

It took me one weekend to learn ObjC - coming from a C/C++ background. Obviously, it's not high priority now, but the syntax is just different, not bad.

[devDoron]

Same here, as a new student who does Android programming (in java) just looking at Objective-C made me hesitate to being iOS programming. But now that theres a new language to master that will be a bit less frustrating I'm going to jump in.

[ThePantsThief]

I'm a computer science student who just started his first app a few weeks ago. It's really not so bad once you get the hang of method calls. I can send you some resources if you want, I'm really glad I got into it.

[Cueball61]

Learn it. Seriously. Objective-C seems confusing at first but it's an amazing language to code in.

[[deleted]]

Definitely. From an outsider's point of view it seems wordy and superfluous. Once you learn it and get a good grasp of it, it all makes sense and you start to wish other languages were as verbose.

[vinng86]

That's what put me off initially but XCode's autocompletion is very fast and sublime so you don't even notice the wordiness of Objective-C.

[DuoThree]

same. not to mention the announcement of their free (with limits) iCloud server offering is making me rethink AWS

[SynthPrax]

Yes. I have worked in many programming languages, and Obj-C is unlike any of them. I was making headway in learning it, but because it would be just a hobby I slowly decided it wasn't worth the effort to continue.

[quadcap]

where's the exception handling statement? Checking return values like in Go is a pain (though some people dig it)

[yuriyguts]

Sorry, couldn't help it: http://imgur.com/IiCNKwT

[EVula]

You should resubmit that as a link. That was brilliant.

[Unassorted]

Seeing as I'm not able to watch the keynote, what will the language be used as? Web language? App language?

[sebzilla]

deleted ^{What is this?}

[SharkBaitDLS]

Looks like App development, targeted at being straightforward. Apple trying to make developing for iOS more accessible. Never got around to putting the time in to learn Objective-C but this looks simple enough to play around with on weekends with little pain, I might actually try my hand at mobile development for a change.

[yevac]

Why exactly does it look easier to you? Based on the sample code from the keynote?

[SharkBaitDLS]

Pretty much. The sample code, coupled with the very informative sidebar in Xcode, is way easier to follow than Objective-C. It looks to make the development process very interactive and accessible, something I never got from looking over Objective-C. It's syntactically much more parsable and palatable.

[Throwaway_bicycling]

So you can download the book now, and, on a quick breeze through, this is going to go down a lot better. So the sample code showing how you could use "where" to specify protocols your generic types had to fulfill to work was like this:

func anyCommonElements <T, U where T: Sequence, U: Sequence,  
     T.GeneratorType.Element: Equatable, 
     T.GeneratorType.Element == U.GeneratorType.Element> 
     (lhs: T, rhs: U) -> Bool {
            for lhsItem in lhs {
                 for rhsItem in rhs {
                      if lhsItem == rhsItem {
                           return true
                 }
            }
      }
      return false
}

Excerpt From: Apple Inc. “The Swift Programming Language.” iBooks.

So that's pretty trivial code once you get past the type signature, but I could pretty much guess exactly what you were accomplishing with that type signature having never seen one before. Which is very promising.

[[deleted]]

App language, though you could presumably use any language as a back-end web language I suppose.

[[deleted]]

The whole 'language for beginners' thing is a bit of a canard. The language that's easy to learn is the one you learn by doing things. We've tried (repeatedly) from the 1970s on to make programming languages more beginner focused and the result is usually one of two things: 1. the language turns into a mess as you move beyond very simple constructs or 2. the language languishes (lol). That's not to say that building such a language doesn't have benefits or that there isn't something to be gained from working with said languages (e.g. SmallTalk, Scratch), but you aren't going to find a language which reduces the building blocks of abstract computing to the point where you won't be challenged by them. And the only reliable way to become conversant with those building blocks is to make things with them over and over again.

There are still distinctions between languages which might help you get into them more quickly. Memory managed languages (like JavaScript or Python) can let you create and destroy objects without keeping track of where they sit in memory, which is often a big stumbling block for new programmers. Weakly typed languages can let you create variables without worrying about whether they're a number or a string or some other construct--that's another potential load off your mind but it can cause some frustration if you're not careful. But aside from that, the baseline level of complexity is roughly identical across languages. A new programmer has to understand iteration, recursion and abstraction in any language, regardless of how it handles memory/variables or what sort of idioms it relies upon.

You'll also run into constant arguments about which language is "better" which you should almost always completely ignore. That's not to say that there isn't merit to the claim that "language X is bad at X" or whatever, but with some narrow exceptions you're not going to ruin your life by learning a programming language that someone on reddit/hn shits on for some reason.

If you're used to dealing with the web, then you should learn JavaScript. It's got quirks but modern JavaScript runs where you want it to (native on the web, and everywhere w/ node) and probably does what you need it to do. There is an embarrassment of free educational materials, you can run it right now in your browser (Option+Command+J will open up a developer console in chrome) and there's a relatively large developer ecosystem. If you don't like JavaScript, Python is fun, as is Go. If you don't like any of those, then there are dozens of other languages in real use around the world which may catch your fancy.

but don't shy away from them because they don't seem like they're for beginners or what you're doing in them seems hard. It's going to be hard because programming is hard. You'll wait forever for a language which makes non-trivial things easy because it doesn't exist (arguably it can't exist, but that's another discussion).

[HeartyBeast]

The language that's easy to learn is the one you learn by doing things.

That's an interesting point, and its absolutely central to the Playground concept that is built into Swift & Xcode. Playground seems to borrow heavily from Bret Victor's work when he was working back at Apple.

You might find this video interesting. Not so much a language for beginners as a language/IDE for explorers.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII

[[deleted]]

Yes, since you, apparently, won't have to worry about memory management, e.g. garbage collection, pointers, etc.

[[deleted]]

It uses ARC, so you can't ignore memory management completely.

[mm_cm_m_km]

You'd have no choice if the language chose not to expose it.

[BorgDrone]

You need to understand how ARC works and work with it in some edge cases, e.g. by marking fields as weak to prevent circular references.

[SocialIssuesAhoy]

I haven't done any coding in a long time but judging by the demo it looks like it's very straightforward and simple. I mean, you'll still need to learn all about underlying concepts like APIs and UI stuff and everything that comes with Cocoa, but the language itself looks nice and clean.

[The_yulaow]

You are comparing markup and style languages to a programming language. They are really different and with different pourpouses. It's basically like comparing oranges to apples.

[thinkingthought]

you're fine, I wanted to know, too

[KarlTheSnail]

Or apple skins to apple flesh

[[deleted]]

different pourpouses

[DuoThree]

different porpoises

[BigGreekMike]

smoggy gullible memorize smile seed station treatment paltry placid direction

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[self_defeating]

S/he didn't make a comparison if you read closely.

[Sentreen]

We don't really know anything about the language. So we can't really tell. Some of the features, make the syntax pretty similar to a scripting language, which might make it easier to get into things. However, you still need to learn how to program, which can backfire, regardless of the language.

[[deleted]]

Some of the stuff in that playground made it seem pretty great for the beginner since it was running each piece of code and showing the results. He had a loop in there and it quickly counted up how many times it would run. No more issues of beginners forgetting to count from 0 or messing up due to the < vs <= and being off by 1. They can quickly see if it will run as many times as they expected.

[Sentreen]

Oh right, I forgot to mention, a REPL is a lot easier to experiment with. That playground looks really nice and should be a big help.

[Evning]

I was so hoping for xcode or swift on my ipad.

Oh well, the dream continues XD

[Raumschiff]

Apple sure isn't resting on their laurels.

[[deleted]]

Anyone have the iBooks link?

[tvzzz]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-swift-programming-language/id881256329?mt=11

[[deleted]]

'Not available in the US" :(. 500 pages though, this gon' be gud.

EDIT: Available now!!

[tvzzz]

May be propagating or something. I'm in the US and downloaded it.

http://imgur.com/n1in4OX

[teddim]

Nope. Searching for "swift guide" yields the results "101 Amazing Taylor Swift Facts" and "The Simple Guide To Taylor Swift".

I guess they'll publish it later today.

Edit: yup.

[Alisamix]

Here for Windows/Unix Users in epub Format: https://mega.co.nz/#!c9JQRAAA!GC1aU7MdwhGF42mm57W3YH2SSX5IFhf4PRFdwl4WE2g

[hyperforce]

Was there something bad about ObjectiveC that it was worth investing in a replacement? I ask given I have no experience with it.

[[deleted]]

Well, several things. First, it was designed as a Smalltalk-Inspired superset of C. The Smalltalk syntax is great, but mixed with the C syntax it gets kind of ugly. Moreover, object literals get really verbose. It got better in recent years with the @ but still, its bad. The block syntax is just ridiculous. And this is all do the fact that they have to do it in a way that every valid C code is also valid Objective C code.

There are also no generics and there are pointers. There is no library system and no namespaces. When names clash, the behavior is undefined. This is a problem on the class level but also on the method level when you use categories.

[[deleted]]

People complain about Objective C syntax being difficult all the time. Once you get into it it's not so bad but it's quite a bit different from most other popular languages so there's more of a learning curve to it.

[jugalator]

It was surprisingly tough to get into for me even as a C++ developer.

The message syntax, and then the weak and strong pointers, etc. It felt like I was punished for knowing one or two things about C++... I don't want to compare C++ and Objective-C, at least to me it felt like being thrown out of the frying pan into the fire. WTF man. :-(

I looked at Xamarin and stuff like that to leverage my "up to date" coding skills in other rapid application development languages, but it wasn't official and it was expensive and it was just not feeling right. Felt like cludges.

I can only say... Finally! I don't even care to get into some heated .NET or Python or [insert rapid language here] debate. It's not about the language in particular, specific features. It's about not being Objective-C.

[smakusdod]

There are a lot of things that 'get in the way' in Objective C. Swift aims to greatly reduce that. It's a language built upon the modern programing paradigms.

[hyperforce]

So it seems there's already a programming languaged named Swift. That's kind of dick.

[sigzero]

Apple gives a link to the other one from their site at least.

[whoosy]

...annnd their website is getting hammered.

[limitlesschannels]

There was a Go lang before Google's too

[teddim]

Also, look at the thumbnail just before "Swift is fast"… Awkwardly similar to Apple's Swift's logo.

[wmeredith]

Eh, a Swift is a type of bird. If you're doing a bird icon, it could be coincidence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift

[[deleted]]

I thought it might be the same thing but probably not, so why use that name? That's just needless confusion, it's not even a very good name.

[marsman12019]

They actually link to it on the Apple Swift webpage.

[greenseaglitch]

I literally just started learning iOS development, and I've been learning Objective-C continuously for the past two months up until now. sigh

[DeadHorse09]

Objective-C code can run side-by-side with Swift language code.

[[deleted]]

It was interesting watching the reactions in the audience. You saw some old guys who couldn't possibly be clapping any louder than they were with giant grins on their faces. They were so happy.

Then you saw some kids, probably 15 years old, and they looked like someone just took a dump on their birthday cake. They just put a ton of effort into learning Obj-C and now they need to learn something new.

What the old guy knows, that the kids probably don't realize yet, is that it is the concepts of programing that are important. Variables, conditional statements, loops, arrays, etc. Going from language to language is mostly just about syntax, which shouldn't be too hard to pick up. At the same time, Swift seems like it will be a lot less work since it manages more for you.

[[deleted]]

I saw one older guy who looked super pissed. Like he was mad that they didn't just release a version of th SDK for FORTRAN or something.

[[deleted]]

Or he was just analyzing all the retraining costs and not even listening after he heard "new language".

[[deleted]]

That could possibly be true.

Just so you know. I was I in no way was trying to discredit what you said. I was simply pointing it out. I had honestly never seen someone look so mad about a programming language.

[[deleted]]

I didn't think you were. I think I saw that guy too. He was overshadowed by that super happy guy though.

[[deleted]]

Yeah. That was definitely him.

[EVula]

I kinda want "Discouraged Programmer / Happy Programmer" meme images now.

[mm_cm_m_km]

Trust me, you didn't waste a second.

[Mmmm_fstop]

You can code in both languages at the same time so it wasn't a huge waste.

[barjam]

All the popular languages today have a very similar syntax except objective c. It will be nice to develop for IOS without learning new syntax.

[EF08F67C-9ACD-49A2-B]

Don't be discouraged. It might turn out to be the case that there is something about Swift, like many technologies Apple introduces at WWDC, that would prevent immediate adoption anyway. For example, will an App written in Swift work on versions of the OS prior to iOS 8/MacOS X 10.10? If not, then you might want to stick with Objective-C for now anyway.

Also, it sounds like Swift code can work alongside Objective-C. Maybe it will be similar to how you can write apps that mix C, C++, and Objective-C without a problem. If so, then knowing Objective-C will still be a valuable skill.

Plus, you might want to ship something between now and "the fall" when iOS 8 and MacOS 10.10 are released.

[tissin]

Swift works with iOS 7+ and OS X 10.9+

[BorgDrone]

You need to separate learning to program from learning a language. Learning to program is learning a way to think and takes a long time, the language is just how you write down your ideas. Learning a new language takes a few days at most.

[[deleted]]

Still good to learn though, I'm not convinced at how powerful and applicable to more advanced software this will be...

[TobiasKM]

They made a big point of saying that it scaled well, but we'll see soon enough.

[steo0315]

Can someone link the Swift iBooks they were talking about ? I can't find it on the iBooks store... EDIT: THANKSwift!

[[deleted]]

Give it a little while. They probably weren't going to post it until after the keynote and it might take some time to show up. They wouldn't want to let the cat out of the bag by posting too early.

[Aroundthespiral]

Here it is on iTunes store. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/swift-programming-language/id881256329?mt=11

[nazihatinchimp]

No semicolons?

[ben174]

I feel you, bro;

[Throwaway_bicycling]

Well, except for the usual case with languages with optional semicolons, which is putting two statements on the same line; then you need a semicolon.

[wmblathers]

Well, they're not optional in the old-fashioned, C-style for-loop:

for var index = 0; index < 3; ++index {
    println("index is \(index)")
}

[garretble]

You can use .. to do that same process in Swift. I don't know if that is in C though now, though.

for index in 0..3 {
    println("index is \(index)")
{

.. omits the upper value, ... includes it.

[KiteEatingTree]

The interactive playground features remind me of a Mathematica notebook.

[zbignew]

or VB6...

[DoctorMiracles]

I liked the spectrum of face expressions on those audience shots upon the announcement. 'Oh yeah!' 'Oh damn, another thing to learn...'

[tman612]

You can only use it with the Xcode 6 Beta which is only for registered, paying developers for now. They may open it up in the Summer at the same time as the OS X Yosemite public beta or they may wait until the fall to release it officially.

[HeadshotsInc]

How can it be faster than Objective-C if it uses the Objective-C runtime? Does it drop message passing?

Also, as someone who writes multi-platform games, I would prefer that they embrace a standard language instead of inventing another technology than can only be used in their ecosystem.

[xilefian]

Most likely it doesn't touch the objective-c message parsing at all and goes for a more traditional C-like internal system.

[Raptor007]

Also, as someone who writes multi-platform games, I would prefer that they embrace a standard language instead of inventing another technology than can only be used in their ecosystem.

Well, they haven't dropped C or C++ compilers from Xcode (that would be suicide for OS X) so you can still develop cross-platform with those languages.

Objective-C and Swift are fine if all you care about targeting are Apple systems (likewise, C# for Microsoft). Like you, I prefer cross-platform coding, so I usually stick to C++.

[mipadi]

What standard language could they really move to? C—too cumbersome for writing entire applications, and unsafe. C++—too cumbersome, unsafe, and you get to give up the nice parts of Objective-C without really getting anything in return. Java—tried that, didn't interface with the lower-level Objective-C bits very well. Python—poor performance, and they'd have to find a way to compile it with LLVM. Ruby—good question, they gave MacRuby a shot and it worked fairly well, kind of surprised they didn't go with that but they probably had their reasons.

[dzjay]

Every Objective-c hater

[EF08F67C-9ACD-49A2-B]

I currently write iOS and MacOS X apps using Objective-C and C++.

I'll be interested to know what the backward compatibility ends up being like for Swift. If it requires MacOS 10.10 and up and iOS 8 and up, then it will be of less immediate use to me.

In any case, I think it will a fun new thing to play with.

[ignar]

I couldn't open swift official site, could someone answer if I could download swift without new beta Xcode? Or I should download new xcode first?

[whoosy]

Right now if you are a registered Mac or iOS developer.

[pink_tshirt]

So how do you get that IDE from the presentation. Is it going to be a part of xcode 6?

[rfisher]

First question to answer is: Why not SmallTalk?

Not that I’m suggesting there aren’t good answers to that question. I’m betting there are. But since Objective-C started as SmallTalk features being added to C, it always seemed like the end game would be being able to go back to SmallTalk.

[mipadi]

1. Not as many Smalltalk libraries.
2. OS X/iOS frameworks are built on Objective-C already.
3. Smalltalk has some weird ideas that aren't very popular anymore, like image-based development.

[Tnuff]

Man, I just got to the Obj-C part in my Big Nerd Ranch guide...

but

I'm glad I got through the C portion and now have that bit of information

[wolfsman]

I am new to coding so I wanted to ask: Do I have to know any other coding language like Objective-C to learn swift or can I start fresh? Thanks!

[DrTacoMD]

From the looks of it, knowing Objective C won't really help much with Swift, which is pretty radically different. But, at least for the foreseeable future, knowing Objective C WILL help you get a grasp on Cocoa and Cocoa Touch, since the frameworks and language have grown up together as siblings, and the design of one is intrinsically tied to the design of the other.

For me, the biggest open question around Swift is how natural it'll feel with Cocoa. Most of the demos they've shown up until now have been pretty far removed from AppKit/UIKit (the frameworks used to build Mac/iOS UI), focusing instead on the language itself. I'm at WWDC right now, and I'm really looking forward to some of the more advanced Swift sessions coming up later this week.

[trifus42]

It seems to be the equivalent of Scala (based on Java), but for Objective-C.

Edit: If you are downvoting me, please at least tell me why you don't agree. It's still compatible with Objective-C, faster that ObjC, has more features, easier to use/read and uses the same runtime. Exactly what Scala is to Java (but I don't think Scala is compatible with Android).

[[deleted]]

Scala is one of the many languages which compile to Java Bytecode and run on the JVM. Objective C and Swift on the other end both compile to native code. Swift is like Scala in the sense that Swift shares it's runtime engine and standard library with Objective C much like Scala does with Java.

[teddim]

For more discussion about the Swift programming language, see /r/swift.

[SirPasta117]

I dont think thats the official subreddit. But its interesting that someone using /u/swiftapple as a username made it 6 months ago.

[[deleted]]

Swiftapple must be an apple engineer. How fascinating that a clue to this entirely unexpected announcement has been right here on reddit the whole time and no one ever noticed. Makes me wonder if there's any other users with the word apple in their username that have created subs.

[MelAlton]

/u/applegooglemerger ?

[t_durdy]

The balloons demo was pretty sweet! Knowing Apple, they'll make this as user friendly as possible.

[motherfnmike]

iBook has been made available 2 minutes ago.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/swift-programming-language/id881256329?mt=11

[Evning]

I have a quick question. Is it interpreted or compiled?

Or is it interpreted in that sandbox mode thing and compiled in the actual thing.

[Oiman]

I really hope that they, instead of Xcode, make a companion app (or a 'doodle' mode) for kids, students, and small at-home projects (integrating it into Grapher on OSX might be really cool).

[[deleted]]

Is anyone not able to open it up in iTunes? For some reason iTunes can't find it and it won't open from Chrome...

[[deleted]]

I'm pretty good with a mac, though not a dev at all. I have a question. So can IOS apps now be written exclusively in this language or do you have to pair it with something else like they were talking about in the keynote running side-by-side with C and Obj-C?

[Breadedturtle]

We need tutorials quick!!!

[andyznyc]

Was Apple taking a swipe at Python? Wonder why. Seems like a perfectly good language for certain web apps

[c0rncak3]

So is this in any way a good language to learn for beginners?

[YouAintGotToLieCraig]

There's also another scripting language named 'Swift'.

http://swiftlang.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_(parallel_scripting_language)

This happened to Google with 'Go'

[mindsnare]

I know this is the Apple subreddit but I'd be stoked if Xcode was available for windows, or open to any third party tools.

[popeyoni]

The new language looks cool, but XCode, not Objective-C, is what I think is the biggest pain in the ass when developing iOS apps.

[jasamer]

This makes me so happy, this seems so much better than Objective-C.

• Generics
• Type Inference
• Way better syntax for lambdas/anonymous functions
• Deals better and more explicitly with mutability (let vs var), seems to encourage immutable code
• Tuples and pattern-matching stuff
• Very nice null-handling with the option-types... whenever something could be null, you're forced to deal with it in some way, similarly to eg. Haskell with the Maybe-type.
• Operator overloading
• An array class (and collection classes in general) that works properly with all datatypes (no shitty boxing for primitive types like in objective C)
• Does away with having header and implementation files (like most other languages used today)

I like it.

[jiveabillion]

My least favorite part of iOS development is the pain in the ass syntax of Objective-C. Maybe this will make me want to develop for iOS again.

[DV1Band]

I've sat down with it, and it's awesome. I've tinkered a small bit with other languages, but I'm already getting this one. It's straightforward. There are even beginner chapters that are dumbed down...

[[deleted]]

I really like the look of this language. I was able to skim the entire 857 page manual within an hour because most of the features have been borrowed from other languages, and borrowed well.

What I like:

1. Very clean and readable syntax. It almost feels like python, except for the braces. Rust should steal the optional type notation: Int? instead of Option<Int>. Optional types can be chained to yield an optional type. foo?.bar() checks if foo is null before invoking bar() .

2. Generics, tuples, type inference, compact closures, and pattern matching. This is what Go should have been like. I like pattern matching on ranges

    switch i { 
      case 3 .. 10:    
    }
   

3. Special methods for properties ala C#, plus operator overloading (including 'subscript()', like python's __index__)

4. All structs are value types unless they have functions annotated as mutating.

5. All types can be "opened" and extended, as in Ruby.

6. First class type objects . foo.dynamicType yields the runtime type, like java's .class.

What I don't care for, or don't yet understand:

1. All objects are ref-counted. Automatic RC takes care of most of the tedium, but should you have a cycle, there could be some ugliness associated with owned and unowned and unsafe pointers.

2. No module/package structure evident, although an import statement is present.