In June 2014, Apple had a surprise in store at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. There was a new language in town called Swift with which you could develop iOS and OS X apps. Till that time, developers could only develop apps for the Apple platform in Objective C.
8 months after the launch, you can still find differing opinions on the new language. Some find it easier to start, some find it harder to debug – however, one thing is for certain that Swift is here to stay. And, for first time developers it just might be easier to get into iOS app development with Swift.
So how should one go about learning Swift. Below are some top free resources that could help you in your journey. If you are looking for top paid courses to learn Swift, take a look at this published article here.
Apple’s documentation (Link):
It is always good to start right at the source. And Apple does a neat job in explaining the core characteristics of the language. It is big, it is detailed and there are a lot of examples. Make sure to go through both the language tour and then the language guide.
Stanford University Course on iTunes (Link):
This is probably the best single resource on the language – and it is absolutely free. Taught in the Stanford University, the lectures are a direct recording so you will have a feel of sitting in the classroom and following things sequentially. The course is also very recent, and well structured.
Plymouth University Course on iTunes (Link):
On similar lines as the Stanford University course, this is also available on iTunes free of cost. You will likely only need to do one of these two, since there is major overlap but take a look at which style suits you best.
Ray Wenderlich’s site (Link):
If the topic is iOS development, no list can be completed without Raywenderlich.com. This is as comprehensive as it can get, with full blown app tutorials. There are also premium materials that you can buy, but even the free resources are worth their weight in Gold.
Thinkster.io Swift course (Link):
Thinkster.io has a very clean interface and structure to guide you into a new technology. The ability to track progress is a plus. This again is a nicely collected and well structured list of resources to move you forward.
Brian Advent’s YouTube Channel (Link):
There is really no dearth of videos on YouTube dedicated to learning Swift. One of the better ones is Brian Advent’s channel. The good thing here is that you can pick up an interesting project and develop it in one tutorial. The teaching style is great and he is also pretty active in answering any queries.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/9rDn3BAKfJM?feature=oembed
SoSoSwift.com (Link):
This one is not a tutorial but a collection of resources that are updated frequently. Rather than subscribing to 10 different Swift newsletters – you could just subscribe to this one and keep up to date.
John an experienced IT specialist with over a decade of experience in the industry. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and has worked in various positions, including software developer, system administrator, and network engineer. John’s expertise includes cloud computing, cybersecurity, and data analytics. He has completed numerous certifications in these areas and is highly knowledgeable in the latest technologies and trends.