Programming can be quite challenging to take on, especially if you go with one of the archaic languages. For freshers, it is recommended to start with something more contemporary, such as Python, Ruby or Swift. The latter appeared in the industry only in 2014, that is why so many programmers are still unconvinced about its study. But in case you are looking for a way into the programming world, leave cynicism aside. Here are a few key reasons that might reassure you.
Great Potential
Only in 2016 alone, the App Store earned about $ 20 billion from apps on the Mac and iOS platforms. Since Apple takes 30% of the App Store profit, the market can be approximated at $ 28.5 billion.
Indeed, that is a lot of money. A piece of that pie can be yours too. Swift language is used to build applications for Mac and iOS, acting as a potential replacement for Objective-C. The latter, although actively applied, is obsolete and does not have a chance after studying Swift, you can build applications for both platforms at once and earn big money on it.
Swift Promoting Fast Development
When the Apple team was searching for a Objective-C replacement they had two requirements in mind:
- The alternative should be easy to learn.
- It should speed up the overall application development process.
That being the case, Swift ticked off all of the attributes of a modern programming language and claimed to be upper-level to Objective-C on all fronts. Swift main characteristics include:
- Absence of undefined or uninitialized variables.
- No errors when dealing with dimensions of arrays.
- Absence of overflow errors.
- Explicit management of nil (null) values.
- Effective memory management.
With that, you end up spending more time contemplating ideas and less time dealing with possible bugs, crashes, and drawbacks in your code. Moreover, the language fixed syntactic verbosity that was in Objective-C, making writing and reading easier. The result is much less time spent on scripting endless code in Swift.
Swift Offering Productive Coding
Even though Swift is considered a high-level language that pushes quick learning, it is really rapid. According to Apple data, Swift is some 2.6 times faster than Objective-C and almost 8.4 times faster than Python 2.7. The final goal however, is to make the language faster than C++.
One has to understand that Swift is not just fact, but also fully equipped with modern language attributes that let you write truly practical code. Among those attributes are:
- generics;
- circuit;
- tuples;
- multiple refunds;
- iterators;
- built-in FP templates.
Safety First
Many of the above-mentioned attributes, as well as the basic syntax, make Swift safer than any other language, including Objective-C. For instance, altered memory management means having fewer cases of unauthorized access to data. Sharing the wrong bits of memory, flawed data modification could also be complicated. Take another case: more accurate error handling dramatically reduces the number of breakdowns and the occurrence of disapproving scenarios. Unpredictable conduct is minimized to extreme.
Enjoying Free, Open Source Language
A year after the Swift was launched, Apple made it an open source language. This is not a truly unique event in the modern world, yet generosity of such scale is rare even for an Apple giant itself. Normally, Apple pushes new technologies to spotlight its own authenticity. But the gesture with Swift was well-justified and rewarding.
As with any other open source language, Swift is handed to the community. Users take the leading role in sugesting best ways to eliminate bugs, refine features, and help move apps beyond Mac and iOS. With that, users become the main driving power behind the language potential.
Rapid Growth of Demand
The GitHub Octoverse 2017 report stated that Swift was the 13th most popular language in open source projects.
TNW reported in 2016 that demand for Swift employees grew by 600 percent. By the end of the year, Upwork said that Swift had become the second fastest-growing skill in the freelance job market. And in the Stack Overflow 2017 survey, Swift came fourth at most popular language among developers.
Undoubtedly, application development is one of the most inquired professions in the industry. If you go with Swift as a career focus, there is a very little risk you are taking there.
What Future for Apple’s Swift?
Currently, there isn’t a single reason for Apple to replace Swift with another language at least for another decade. The 4-year progress, both in terms of development and promotion, consistently growing sales of “Apple” devices and the expansion of the line, should all be taken into consideration as well. Based on these circumstances, it would be safe to say that the demand for Swift developers will only grow with time.
In case you are dreaming about working with Apple and become a part of their massive financial structure – you must know Swift. So It’s time to start learning, right here and right now.
References
- Apple’s Swift programming language: Cheat sheet – TechRepublic
-
What is the Swift programming language? – Lena Charles
