The first thing to do is to download the latest version of Apple's Swift Programming Language book from the iBooks Store.
You can just read this book, especially the first section: "A Swift Tour", but you will get more out of it if you follow along with the playground. There is a link to download the playground from the book which you can use directly if you are reading using iBooks on the Mac. If you are not, here is the download link.
Icon Builder 3.2 is now available from the Mac App Store.
Firstly, I can give you the technical answer, as published by Apple:
Swift is a new programming language for iOS, OS X, watchOS, and tvOS apps that
builds on the best of C and Objective-C, without the constraints of C
compatibility. Swift adopts safe programming patterns and adds modern features
to make programming easier, more flexible, and more fun. Swift’s clean slate,
backed by the mature and much-loved Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, is an
opportunity to reimagine how software development works.
Swift has
been years in the making. Apple laid the foundation for Swift by advancing our
existing compiler, debugger, and framework infrastructure. We simplified
memory management with Automatic Reference Counting (ARC). Our framework
stack, built on the solid base of Foundation and Cocoa, has been modernized
and standardized throughout. Objective-C itself has evolved to support blocks,
collection literals, and modules, enabling framework adoption of modern
language technologies without disruption. Thanks to this groundwork, we can
now introduce a new language for the future of Apple software development.”
This is the first post in what I hope will be an extensive series dealing with the Swift language. Here are some of the questions I hope to answer:
After that, I am planning a series of posts discussing the major differences of Swift from the view point of an Objective-C programmer and the aspects of Swift that I found difficult to grasp. Topics covered will include such things:
I have started a new Twitter account so that I can provide rapid support to users of my apps. Please contact me @trozware if you have any questions, suggestions, bug reports or would just like to chat.
I will also be using this account to promote my new Learning Swift series.