Swift Tutorials for Front-end Developers: Getting Started

Master Swift in 2024 and Start Developing Your Own iOS/macOS App

Swift is a general-purpose programming language that’s approachable for newcomers and powerful for experts.It is fast, modern, safe, and a joy to write.

Swift is a strongly typed, object-oriented programming language introduced by Apple to replace Objective-C and become the main programming language in the Apple ecosystem. Debuting in 2014, Swift is popular among developers for its simplicity, modernity, and efficiency.

• Variables, Constants, and Data Types
• Conditionals and Loops
• Arrays, Dictionaries, and Sets
• Optional Types, Optional Binding, and Optional Chaining
• Optional parameters, Variadic parameters, In-out parameters, and Function types
• Closure expressions, Trailing closures, and Escape closures
• Defining enums, Enum raw values, and Enum associated values
• Classes and Class inheritance, Optional properties, Type properties, and Property observers
• Structure Stored Properties, Computed Properties, Type Properties, Property Observers

What are the features of Swift?

1. Simplicity and readability: Swift focuses on simplicity and readability, making code clearer and easier to understand, and reducing redundancy and complexity.
2. Safe: Swift introduces a modern safe programming model that reduces the likelihood of errors in code through features such as type inference and optional types.
3. High Performance: Swift successfully develops highly responsive applications by interacting directly with the underlying system and using advanced compiler techniques.
4. Interoperability: Swift is Objective-C compatible and can be used with existing Objective-C code, making migration and mashups easier.

Why learn Swift?

For front-end engineers, learning Swift can not only consolidate the foundation of programming but also broaden the skill stack. Swift is widely used in mobile development, especially on the iOS and macOS platforms. By mastering Swift, front-end engineers can expand their fields and improve their career development space. To facilitate front-end engineers to quickly get started with Swift, I will use TypeScript language as an auxiliary language. We hope that through comparative learning, front-end engineers who are familiar with TypeScript can better grasp the grammatical features of Swift. After a brief introduction to Swift, let’s quickly experience Swift.

Getting Started with Xcode

1. Open Xcode: If you haven’t installed Xcode yet, go to the App Store to download and install it. After Xcode is successfully installed, open Xcode.

2. Create a new Playground: In Xcode, select “File” > “New” > “Playground”.

3. Select the “Blank” template: give the playground a name, and choose a location to save it.

4. Writing Code: In the Playground, you can see a code editing area.

5. Run Code: After writing code in the editing area, you can click the triangle button below the editing area to run the code. And the area below is the debug area, you can show this debug area by selecting “View” > “Debug Area” > “Show Debug Area”.

Finally, let’s write some basic Swift code examples using the Xcode Playground.

Variables and Constants

Swift Code

// Declaration and initialization of variables
var greeting = "Hello, Swift!"

// Definition and assignment of constants
let pi = 3.14159

TypeScript Code

// Declaration and initialization of variables
let greeting: string = "Hello, TypeScript!";

// Definition and assignment of constants
const PI: number = 3.14159;

Data Types

Swift Code

var message: String = "Welcome to Swift!"

var age: Int = 25

var temperature: Double = 26.5

var completed: Bool = true

TypeScript Code

let message: string = "Welcome to TypeScript!";

let age: number = 25;

let temperature: number = 26.5;

let completed: boolean = true;

Conditional statements and loops

Swift Code

// Conditional statements
var number = 10
if number > 0 {
    print("Positive number")
} else if number < 0 {
    print("Negative number")
} else {
    print("Zero")
}

// For-in loops
for i in 1...5 {
    print("Index: \(i)")
}

TypeScript Code

// Conditional statements
let number: number = 10;
if (number > 0) {
    console.log("Positive number");
} else if (number < 0) {
    console.log("Negative number");
} else {
    console.log("Zero");
}

// For loops
for (let i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
    console.log("Index: " + i);
}

With these simple examples, we can see that Swift and TypeScript have a lot of similarities in their basic syntax. If you want to learn Swift, you can follow me on Medium or Twitter to read more about Swift and TS!