Swift is a compiled programming language created by Apple. It combines elements from the C and Objective-C languages. It has modern features and safe patterns that make programming more adaptable and easier. Swift is a fresh approach to programming languages and is supported by the well-known Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks. It is a programming language built with the LLVM compiler framework that is included in Xcode (version 6 or later). Swift allows programmers to combine C, Objective-C, C++ and Swift code within a single app.
Advantages
- Swift is easy to read – some C elements did not made their way into this language
- The way you can handle strings in Swift is a big advantage over Objective-C, being much simpler
- The language tuples offer compound variables which means that values in tuple can be of any type
- Swift is a complete language with modern requirements
- It introduces generics, functions that can be reused with different variable types without being rewritten for each type (they are basically less powerful C++ templates)
- A new feature called “Playground” allows developers to get an instant feedback of their work
- Swift is an open-source programming language
Disadvantages
- Lower performance than other similar technologies (such as Objective-C)
- Swift is not a cross-platform programming language
- Third-party libraries and source codes are only available in Objective-C
- Swift doesn’t support pure virtual functions, so abstract classes can’t be created
Components
- Core Libraries
- Language Constructs
- Package Manager
Development tools
- Xcode 6.0+