Swift Programming for iOS 101 – Part1: The Basics

Many of you have followed the recent Apple Keynote (June 2, 2014)  introducing a new programming language for creating iOS and Mac OS apps. It is quite astonishing introducing Swift as the new default programming language for Apple’s platforms, as Objective-C has already been established as the core programming language for so many years. Nonetheless, you can consider this shift as quite groundbreaking. Bear in mind that this change has a more profound impact than in the case of the Storyboard. If you remember, the Storyboard introduced a new way of handling the UI of an iOS app. Back in the day, both systems, meaning using nibs and storyboards, were still quite common; however, nowadays, most apps are developed with

Many of you have followed the recent Apple Keynote (June 2, 2014)  introducing a new programming language for creating iOS and Mac OS apps. It is quite astonishing introducing Swift as the new default programming language for Apple’s platforms, as Objective-C has already been established as the core programming language for so many years. Nonetheless, you can consider this shift as quite groundbreaking. Bear in mind that this change has a more profound impact than in the case of the Storyboard. If you remember, the Storyboard introduced a new way of handling the UI of an iOS app. Back in the day, both systems, meaning using nibs and storyboards, were still quite common; however, nowadays, most apps are developed with Storyboards as the default UI mechanism.

As a result, you can expect the same happening with Swift. Yet, take into account that in the case of Swift, the change implies more changes than in the case of Storyboards. As you might know, learning a new programming language takes time and this also implies that you will have to tackle the issues between Objective-C and Swift. Apple promises that you will pick up this language quite easily and quickly. I do not believe that, because any language requires time and effort in order to master it. And, this also applies to Swift. Yes, it may be less difficult than learning Objective-C from scratch, but you also need to capture not only Swift, but also what you will do with your already developed iOS apps with Objective-C.

Hence, we will talk about these issues in this and in the upcoming tutorials.

This first video tutorial will display and explain the basics of how to set up your Mac and how to use XCode, the software development kit you use for writing iOS apps.

Check it out here:

Attila Alexander Teglas has written 58 articles

Attila is a freelance software architect, project manager, consultant, and instructor with more than eight years of experience in the software industry. He developed and managed projects for elite universities, medium-sized companies, multi-national corporations, and the European Union.

He has been developing mobile applications, primarily iOS and Android, for more than five years.

Furthermore, he conducted more than 150+ architecture reviews and audits of mobile apps, scrutinizing and detecting issues & defects for the improvement of these projects.

Regularly, he lectures iOS and Android development to computer science students. Attila rejoices teaching the possibilities and pitfalls of iOS and Android development, giving students the skillset to develop their own high quality apps.

While not writing apps, Attila improves his Chinese and Russian language skills and he travels the world with his beautiful wife.