What’s swift
Generated on 8/1/2024
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Swift is a modern programming language developed by Apple, designed to be fast, safe, and expressive. It was introduced to simplify the process of writing software and is now used in almost 1 million apps. Swift is not only ideal for app development but is also used throughout Apple's software stack, including apps, system services, frameworks, firmware, and network services.
Swift's key features include:
- Safety: Swift is designed to eliminate common programming errors and improve code safety.
- Speed: It is optimized for performance, making it suitable for even the most performance-sensitive and secure code.
- Approachability: Swift's syntax is lightweight and easy to learn, making it accessible for newcomers while being powerful enough for experts.
- Interoperability: Swift has built-in interoperability with C and C++, allowing it to be used alongside existing codebases.
Swift has evolved significantly since its introduction, with major milestones including the introduction of the Swift Package Manager, the stable ABI on Apple platforms, and the concurrency model with async/await and actors. The latest version, Swift 6, introduces data race safety and a new language subset called embedded Swift for highly constrained systems.
For more detailed information, you can refer to the following sessions from WWDC 2024:
- Platforms State of the Union (27:21)
- What’s new in Swift (00:07)
- A Swift Tour: Explore Swift’s features and design (00:07)
These sessions provide a comprehensive overview of Swift's features, design principles, and the latest updates.
Platforms State of the Union 5-Minute Recap
Watch a quick recap of the newest advancements on Apple platforms.
A Swift Tour: Explore Swift’s features and design
Learn the essential features and design philosophy of the Swift programming language. We’ll explore how to model data, handle errors, use protocols, write concurrent code, and more while building up a Swift package that has a library, an HTTP server, and a command line client. Whether you’re just beginning your Swift journey or have been with us from the start, this talk will help you get the most out of the language.
Platforms State of the Union
Discover the newest advancements on Apple platforms.
What’s new in Swift
Join us for an update on Swift. We’ll briefly go through a history of Swift over the past decade, and show you how the community has grown through workgroups, expanded the package ecosystem, and increased platform support. We’ll introduce you to a new language mode that achieves data-race safety by default, and a language subset that lets you run Swift on highly constrained systems. We’ll also explore some language updates including noncopyable types, typed throws, and improved C++ interoperability.