Swift: Why It Matters and How It Will Affect the IT Industry
If you see developers everywhere ditching Objective-C and sticking their noses in a new iBook, you aren’t alone. At this year’s WWDC developer event, Apple surprised all of the developers in the audience with the launch of their new programming language, Swift. What were the motives behind switching to a new programming language and how will they affect the IT industry as a whole?
First of all, Objective-C is notoriously difficult to use. Most novices who have attempted to learn it and even developers familiar with its complexities breathed a sigh of relief at the announcement. Apple wants to make iOS and Mac OS X more accessible to a wider range of developers and sticking with Objective-C wasn’t working. However, it isn’t meant to feel unfamiliar to existing developers. Swift uses the same LLVM compiler and runtime so the code can live side-by-side in the same application. Apple hopes this will “unify the procedural and object-oriented portions of the language.”
The Swift Programming Language, Apple’s free e-book , offers a guide that delves into the various features of the language and acts as a formal reference for any interested developer. Because of its accessibility and its promise to “adopt safe programming patterns and add modern features to make programming easier, more flexible and more fun”, any business looking to develop for Apple will soon have a wider pool of iOS and Mac OS X developers to pull from. This will help alleviate the stresses of hiring qualified developers in a shrinking talent pool. The eventual increase in talent may also make developers’ salaries accelerate at a slower rate.
Additionally, Swift utilizes many time saving features like displaying outputs in real time and instant feedback on errors. This saves developers from having to create colossal amounts of code before seeing the results. Apple developers can also say goodbye to sifting through code line-by-line to find tiny errors in code when an issue arises. These benefits will prove cost-effective for corporations and may sway more of the IT industry’s top innovators to developing for Apple.
Although these affects will not be seen immediately, the IT industry is abuzz about Swift. The unexpected introduction of a new programming language makes iOS and Mac OS X development a more viable option in the upcoming years and its accessibility will certainly work to Apple’s advantage.