Swift, the new way to build iOS Apps. Here's how

http://iosblog.co.uk/tutorials/developing-ios-apps-using-swift-part-1/

by markcrazyhorse • 12 years ago

81 68 12 years ago

iosblog.co.uk

meoz• 12 years ago

It's again the same boilerplate-code to create something simple as a tableview. I don't understand why they had to 'invent' a new programming language for that.

jameskilton• 12 years ago

That's not why they built Swift.

Objective-C is a difficult language to work with and has decades of cruft. Swift is a start-over, but with Objective-C interop so you still have full access to the full existing APIs for OSX and iOS. Thus, the same boiler plate.

matwood• 12 years ago

The thing is, understanding Obj-C was never the hard part. For example, understanding ARC, weak vs. strong (and now unowned [1]), and the various libraries is what took time and experience. Swift doesn't solve that at all and in fact offers its own oddities like the below:

“You indicate type methods for classes by writing the keyword class before the method’s func keyword, and type methods for structures and enumerations by writing the keyword static before the method’s func keyword.”

Excerpt From: Apple Inc. “The Swift Programming Language.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/jEUH0.l

I do think the new language is neat and will be fun to work in, but it doesn't solve the parts that tripped up many people when working in Objc.

[1]

    @lazy var asHTML: () -> String = {
        [unowned self] in
        if let text = self.text {
            return "<\(self.name)>\(text)</\(self.name)>"
        } else {
            return "<\(self.name) />"
        }
    }

Excerpt From: Apple Inc. “The Swift Programming Language.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/jEUH0.l

fit2rule• 12 years ago

>Swift is a start-over

For me, Lua+LuaJIT+C/C++ as a cross-platform solution to everything is a start-over, and it gives me all kinds of things I don't get from Swift, one of them is the ability to make decisions for myself about how the basic structures of the application are going to be managed and under what conditions, either in the VM as needed or out of it, and with whatever current frameworks you want to interface with (e.g. everything). Plus, LuaJIT for the win. Plus put it, simply everywhere. (On:iOS,Linux,OSX,Win,Web,&etc.)

Swift is interesting, but I will not again be swayed to the darkside of using platform-provider-provided-platforms to achieve platform nirvana, for that harness contains nails upon which to be pinned.

Planks can be assembled of many kinds, but mine is shiny enough without another dastardly developer-mindset-grab by a very, very serious cult.

(<<--MacbookPro'er)

joeblau• 12 years ago

I think the problem is with the boilerplate of objective-c. I tried to make something last night and I'll be honest, I felt like I was in Go or Scala (functional) more than I was in a C-ish style language. I'm not gonna lie, I was looking at some of the docs with a "WTF" look, but I'm a big proponent of functional programming. In the few instances that I've used it, my code has been very concise, but not always easily readable.

rubiquity2• 12 years ago

What features of Swift do you find functional? What kind of functional features are you using? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity, not to put you on the spot. Thanks!

chrisdevereux2• 12 years ago

You are free to use one of the many tableview helper libraries if you aren't happy with the tradeoff between flexibility and convenience that the built-in API makes.

You could argue that the frameworks should ship with such a wrapper, but I'd personally rather that they spent their time making difficult things easier than making easy things easier.

zura• 12 years ago

Agree. While Obj-C is one of the ugliest language, the main problem was/is API/SDK.

orkoden• 12 years ago

Wat? Cocoa is pretty great.

samirmenon• 12 years ago

"programming language called Swift which replaces Objective-C"

Does Swift really replace Objective-C?

ktran03• 12 years ago

Not officially yet, but in due time I think it's inevitable.

weegee1014• 12 years ago

No, it doesn't. It is a great way to do 99% of the tasks most developers do. There is, and always will be, a place for Obj-C on the Macintosh platforms. Apple recognizes that most developers don't need the verbosity and tight-knit compatibility with C that Obj-C provides, and that is where Swift comes in.

pjmlp6• 12 years ago

I see Objective-C been shown the door if Swift is successful, it just needs a few iOS and OS X releases, with C left around for the UNIX layer.

Lets say around XCode version 10 gets released.

jpb0104• 12 years ago

Quick question. Can Swift be used to build OSX applications?

chrisdroukas• 12 years ago

Yes.

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/reference...

jamra2• 12 years ago

It all compiles using the same compiler so you can not only create OS X apps, but you can create hybrid Swift/Objective-c apps.

_pmf_• 12 years ago

Swift is the new Visual Basic.

sdegutis• 12 years ago

Actually it's a lot more like the new C#, which is probably a good thing.

petilon• 12 years ago

How do you specify public vs private members? The language seems to be missing private/public keywords, and protocols (interfaces) are automatically generated.

chrisdevereux2• 12 years ago

You can't at the moment, but you will be able to soon: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24003918/does-swift-have-...

jamra2• 12 years ago

You can create protocols with Swift. Did you mean that protocols also suffer from the same public/private issues?

TruthSHIFT• 12 years ago

Are we allowed to talk about this? Isn't this still under NDA?

FroshKiller• 12 years ago

Considering that the book is available from Apple for free on the iBooks store....

smackfu• 12 years ago

The developer web pages are on public URLs that don't have any developer authentication or headers that say they are non-public information. It would be quite ironic if registered developers were under an NDA but the public was not.

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documenta...

myko• 12 years ago

No, Swift isn't under NDA

This is based on a SA thread posted by a Swift team member that I linked in another HN thread, the post is available here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=363...

and the relevant quote is from the second post:

Is this under NDA?

No.

Is this open source?

Not yet. It probably will be, but I can't make promises. Right now, our repository still has a lot of history that we don't want to make public, and we have a lot of work to do before we release.

andrewdanks• 12 years ago

I think the author misses the point of the `let` keyword. It's not meant as the equivalent of declaring constants in Objective-C; they're main purpose isn't to be global and static like constants.

rubiquity2• 12 years ago

And yet you've managed to shed no light on how constants should be used in Swift.

andrewmunsell• 12 years ago

To shed some light on the practice of using `let` vs. `var`, an excerpt from the book by Apple:

“If a stored value in your code is not going to change, always declare it as a constant with the let keyword. Use variables only for storing values that need to be able to change.”

Excerpt From: Apple Inc. “The Swift Programming Language.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/jEUH0.l

gress8• 12 years ago

Let is fine for defining constants, but it should also be used whenever possible for two reasons:

1. It gives you additional safety against accidental reassignment.

2. It gives the compiler a major optimization hint since the value is not a variable.

jquave2• 12 years ago

BTW, part 2 is here: http://jamesonquave.com/blog/developing-ios-apps-using-swift...

grin• 12 years ago

And the github project is here: https://github.com/jquave/Swift-Tutorial

Kidnznet• 12 years ago

Free downloadable ebooks can be found there: http://www.iphonetransferrecovery.com/Swift/free-ebooks.html

SarahJune• 12 years ago

So is this actually a lot easier to use than Objective-C?

jakejake• 12 years ago

Not sure if that was meant as sarcasm, but I'll take it as a real question..!

Being a mediocre Objective C programmer myself, I really like the look of Swift. The difficulty of programming for iOS (or any platform) is partly the language syntax and partly the library/frameworks. I think Swift will help greatly with the language, but there is still a lot to learn as far as the UI kit and such. Swift doesn't really change the fundamental way the libraries work - the syntax is just cleaner (as a matter of opinion, I suppose).

In addition to looking a lot more familiar and certain functions being much more readable, apparently using Swift will be safer in regards to memory issues too, which is comforting for people like me who are not guru-level with managing memory. I'm personally looking forward to using it starting this week.

josephlord3• 12 years ago

Yes...with caveats. It looks really nice, simpler syntax for the most part but the type system seems much stronger and I think those not used to functional languages/type theory may struggle to get complex things running straight away. But when it does run it should be a lot more robust (so I think it is a good change).

gress8• 12 years ago

I think this is false. Things that are simple in Objective-C will be simpler in Swift, with better feedback from the compiler.

Things that are complex in objective-c will also be simpler and more robust in swift.

There is a kind of complex coding using generics and the type system that would be harder for an inexperienced developer to understand, but that seems to me to be strictly additive to Objective-C.

desireco422• 12 years ago

What's the deal with optionals? I am not sure what the use case are.

Seems much better then ObjectiveC

netcraft• 12 years ago

The docs seem to cover it pretty well: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documenta...

But the basic idea around optionals is a much better and cleaner way of dealing with possible null (nil) values. Lots of other languages have and are getting optionals.

desireco422• 12 years ago

What was confusing me that they would specify it during initialization.

Zaheer• 12 years ago

I'm aggregating resources to learn Swift for both new/existing iOS devs. Check it out at:

http://www.LearnSwift.tips

Mostly for selfish reasons to share it easily with friends.

red40• 12 years ago

Is the extension keyword a form of reflection?

markcrazyhorse• 12 years ago

There is an awesome Swift Cheat Sheet and Quick Reference: http://swift-cheatsheet.co.uk

Swift, the new way to build iOS Apps. Here's how

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