Author of "Swift and Cocoa Framework Development": Your programming starts with Swift!

Paris Buttfield-Addison is a co-founder, mobile application engineer, and game designer at Secret Lab, a game development company that is committed to making technology easy and fun. Paris has a PhD in computing and a bachelor's degree in history. He previously worked as a product manager for Meebo in Silicon Valley, which was acquired by Google in 2012. He has written a series of technical books on iOS and game development, including "Learning Objective-C and Cocoa Framework", "iOS Game Development Strategy", "Swift and Cocoa Framework Development", and "Unity Mobile Game Development".

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Q: As a history major, how did you become an iOS expert and game development expert?

As well as studying medieval history, I have several other degrees in computing (honours and a PhD). I find that my background in history gives me a different perspective on technology than many people do, and I think history is very interesting.

Q: After Swift 2.0, is the book "Swift and Cocoa Framework Development" outdated? Are there any parts in the book that need to be revised?

Swift 2.0 has some syntax changes, but the philosophy of the language has not changed. Developing with Swift and Cocoa is still very useful, and if anything is out of date - we will publish a change log for the book, which will tell you where the code has changed from the printed code when you program in Swift 2.0, and we will post the change log on our blog soon (http://secretlab.com.au/blog/|e9b49d8ef7816e77c1d19efe698550cb6|). We are also working on another book called Learning Swift, which is the latest and covers Swift 2.0.

Q: In your opinion, what impact will open source have on the Swift ecosystem and its relationship with Android?

I don't think it will change much. Swift has learned a lot from the previous Apple developer language, Objective-C, which was very obscure before iOS. I think if there is any change in open sourcing Swift, it is that people may start writing server software in Swift, and then Swift will form a bigger and better community.

I don't think this will have an impact on the relationship between iOS and Android; Java is a very old language, even a legacy language, and Swift is modern. It would be cool if Google updated the Android environment to a modern language (such as Swift) - in fact, Google already has a modern language (Go), but it's not used on Android yet!

Q: What did Swift learn from other languages? What are your favorite features of Swift?

Swift borrows a lot from languages ​​like Rust and Python. My favorite feature of Swift is its effort at inherent safety; it’s hard to make mistakes with Swift because it enforces a lot of “good style”.

Swift is designed to be a safe language. Many flaws in C (such as accidentally using a null pointer) are hard to come by in Swift. Swift takes strong typing very seriously, and does not allow objects to be null except in very special cases.

Q: Why don’t many companies use Swift in production yet?

Because Swift is new and is changing. Now that Swift 2.0 is out, I suspect (but not sure) that Apple won't change it much, which means more mobile developers will use Swift in their product apps. Just like byte code, the App Store itself compiles and connects apps for users who download or purchase them, so Swift is essential for the future of apps.

Q: Will Swift completely replace Objective-C in the future? Do you recommend beginners to learn Objective-C or Swift first?

For us, Swift has completely replaced Objective-C! For real developers, this replacement can happen at any time. This is an important step. For beginners, there is no need to learn Objective-C anymore!

Objective-C was once a very powerful language. Its main difference from C++ is that it is a dynamic language. In any object-oriented language, functions need to be bound to the specific data they operate on, and this binding is done either when the code is compiled or at runtime. C++ uses static binding, which improves runtime performance but reduces flexibility. Objective-C uses dynamic binding, which is slightly slower, but greatly increases the flexibility of the language.

However, Objective-C has its own problems. Because it's based on C, it inherits a lot of quirks from its parent language, such as the preprocessor and pointer arithmetic. These features, while very powerful, can make your code less readable and safer. Apple has done a great job of keeping Objective-C modern, but even die-hard fans of the language think it's a bit dated.

Enter Swift. Swift is a new language designed to make iOS and Mac app development easier, faster, and safer. It's designed to be easier to learn and better at preventing programmer errors than Objective-C; in fact, Apple describes it as "Objective-C without the C." Because Swift is built and compiled with LLVM (the toolset used by Objective-C) and uses the Objective-C runtime, we can write a single app that uses C, Objective-C, and Swift.

Q: Is it necessary to learn C before learning Swift?

No! You can start with Swift, it's a great, fun, simple, and safe language. You can learn C later when you want to understand the inner workings of programs.

Q: What kind of knowledge framework does an iOS development expert need to master?

I also do a lot of design - building good mobile apps (or any kind of app these days) requires a good sense of design! Learn design because it will influence others better.