Swift Programming Language | Overview 2022

Swift Programming Language | Swift is an interpreted programming language that is compatible with iOS, macOS, watchOS, televisionOS, Linux applications. This is what you should be aware of Swift.

It was developed by Apple in 2014 by Apple. Backed up by one of the biggest technology companies around the globe, Swift is set to be the primary language used for iOS development as well as beyond.

Free Source. Swift creators acknowledged the need to develop a definitive programing language, technology must to be accessible to all. In the seven-year existence, Swift has gained an extensive friendly community as well as an array of tools from third parties.

Secure. Its syntax encourages the writer to write clear and consistent code, which can be a bit stifling at times. Swift is a security tool that helps you avoid mistakes and increase the comprehension.

In demand. In the same way, it is still tops with Objective C, Swift was ranked as 20th among the top programming languages in 2021 (while Objective C is 26th) and 8th among the most adored languages.

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Pros and Cons of Using Swift to develop for iOS Native Development
Pros and Cons of Swift Programming Language

Pros and Cons of Using Swift to develop for iOS Native Development

Sometimes often referred to as “Objective-C but without the C,” Swift language is superior in many ways to the language it replaced. For a thorough comparison between Swift with Objective C read our article.

As per the official announcement, ” Swift is a combination of the efficiency and performance of compiled languages, while retaining the ease and flexibility of the most popular scripting languages.” Leaving technology details aside and marketing we’ll look at what it means from a an economic perspective.

Rapid development process

A simple and elegant language that is simple in structure and syntax, Swift can be easier write and read. Swift is extremely concise and therefore, less code is needed for the same function when compared with Objective-C.

Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) completes all the monitoring and managing the memory use of the app, meaning developers do not have to put in the hours and effort manually. In turn, it requires less effort to develop iOS apps using Swift.

It is easier to grow the product and team

Along with a faster development, you also get an application that is future-proof and able to be expanded by adding new features as required.

This means that Swift projects are usually simpler to scale. The factor is that Apple tends to accept Swift than Objective-C is a reason to be taken into consideration when planning a long-term investments.

Performance improvements, speed of development, as well as safety

Like the name suggests, Swift is made to be… well fast. With an emphasis on speed and performance the language was created to be faster than its predecessor. In particular, the first release boasted a 40 percent improvement in performance when compared with Objective-C.

Reduced footprint of memory

When you develop an application, you make use of many third-party software that is reusable and usually open source frameworks and libraries that you integrate into your application’s code. These libraries may be dynamic or static (or used in shared).

It’s likely they are static libraries are encoded into code at the time that you built them. They are then part of the executable file, thereby increasing the size and loading time. They can’t be automatically updated because they’re within the version you built at.

Dynamic libraries On contrary, are in the code of your program and are only uploaded when they are required. Static libraries require copies in every file of your program , whereas dynamic ones only require only one. Swift initially introduced dynamic libraries on iOS in the first time it was released.

Interoperability with Objective C

According to Jordan Morgan, iOS developer at Buffer stated on the Medium blog post, “[…] swift is the latest toy and is regarded as the future. Objective-C is aging and is likely to be less common. But for the moment and the future, both have to learn to live together peacefully.”

In this regard there are two potential scenarios for integrating both into the same project. can either add new features to Swift and the current Objective-C source code or incorporate Objective-C elements within your brand new Swift project.

Automatic memory management through ARC

Swift makes use of Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) which is a technique that aims to include a garbage collector feature that wasn’t available on iOS prior to. Languages such as Java, C# and Go employ garbage collectors to eliminate instances of classes that aren’t being used.

They are helpful in reducing the footprint of your memory, but they can increase the amount of memory to the CPU. Prior to ARC, iOS developers had to manually manage memory and keep track of retain counts of each class. Swift’s ARC detects instances that are no longer being used and eliminates them for you. It lets you improve your app’s performance , without slowing your CPU or memory.

Full stack and cross-device support

Actively driven with the help of IBM, the initiative to place Swift in the cloud has proved good up to this point. Server-side Swift is compatible with a lot of the most popular backend technologies.

Like the full-stack JavaScript development using Swift in both the backend as well as the frontend for your application permits extensive reuse and sharing of code which speeds the development process as well as making development easier.

Additionally, Apple provided support for all of its devices: Mac, MacBooks, iPhones iPads Apple TV and Apple Watch.

A vibrant open source community as well as the ability to learn

As Apple’s Senior Vice President for Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, mentioned ” We saw open-sourcing as an essential element to enable Swift achieve its potential as a main language in the coming twenty years in programming within our field.”

Indeed, with the solid corporate support of Apple along with IBM, Swift Programming Language has quickly become an enviable position among the active open community of open source. The trends in adoption that were mentioned earlier, are a good example. In addition, Swift is among the top five most popular languages on GitHub and is followed by Go, TypeScript, and Rust.

As a language that is still in its infancy, Swift sure has an abundant amount of resources that can assist developers to accelerate the adoption. Beyond official e-books there are a myriad of community guidelines podcasts online, real-world classes and third-party applications, including Swift Playgrounds which are games-based learning experiences offered by Apple.

Pros and Cons of Swift Programming Language

Although there are plenty of reasons to be happy with Swift but it is far from being perfect. Many business and development professionals are cautious when it comes to making the switch to Swift.

The language is quite young

Swift was first introduced worldwide in 2014. It may seem to be quite a while since the time, yet Swift is only seven years old when compared to Objective C that has been around from the 80s. The most recent update brought ABI stability across all Apple platforms and backward compatibility for Swift versions, as well as updated documentation. These are major steps in making Swift an advanced language.

However, at the exact at the same time, these actions, i.e., frequent updates and modifications, frequently make developers question whether current code will work with earlier versions in the future and also if the project will be compile in any way.

A small talent pool

Although Swift is gaining popularity, the Swift community is growing rapidly however, it’s still smaller than any another open-source language. According to the most recent Stack Overflow Developer Survey that just 5.1 percentage of the total 83,053 respondents utilize Swift.

That means that if choose to develop your next project with Swift it could be a challenge to find developers who are proficient enough in the field.

Insufficient interoperability with third-party tools and IDEs

Due to the frequent updates, as noted previously, it’s often difficult to find the best tools to aid in specific tasks. Furthermore it is true that the most popular Apple IDE, XCode, has a lot of work to do in terms of tools as well as compatibility with Swift.

Developers are often complaining about issues with syntax highlighting Autocomplete and refactoring software and compilers.

Support for cross-platforms is not complete.

As we’ve already mentioned, Swift supports all Apple platforms, in addition to Linux as well as Windows. It was initially designed and is still used to be used for native iOS development which leaves its platform-specific development market up for React Native, Xamarin and Flutter..

Support for older iOS versions

It is only possible to use Swift within applications designed for iOS7 or later. However, Swift isn’t a viable option for legacy applications that run on older versions of iOS. It’s not a big deal as it’s just one small percentage of Apple devices are running iOS6 or older versions, but you should be aware of this in case in the event of a need.

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