More Swift

Since Apple announced Swift was going open source and coming to Linux by the end of the year, my interest was peeked again to dive in and start learning it.

With Swift running on Linux servers the race is on to create a compelling web framework so that it will be possible to write iOS apps and server applications with the same language.  A modern type safe systems language that’s still fast and easy to write is pretty appealing.

Working through the Swift book and code examples, I’m finding it to be quite a nice language – especially with the new Swift 2.0 improvements.

Unlike other modern languages Swift still has some short comings:

• lack of a first class package manager (like pip for python, go get for golang, gems for ruby etc)
• a comprehensive standard library (Python and Go have tremendous built-ins)

Swift feels quite new and the team at Apple is still making breaking changes to the language syntax.  I’m hopeful that open sourcing the language and bringing it to Linux will open the door to allow other developers outside of Apple’s ecosystem to start learning it.