Should I learn Swift or Objective-C directly?

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After we released the Swift language learning course, we received a lot of emails and private messages asking whether they still need to learn C or Objective-C. In addition, people seem to be confused about where Swift fits into the iOS development ecosystem. Through this article, I hope to clear your doubts and put you on the right learning track.

Should I learn C/Objective-C first or go straight to Swift?

Swift is a brand new language that has nothing to do with Objective-C or C. I mean they are both programming languages ​​and follow some basic concepts and paradigms, but you don't need to learn one before the other. Even if you are new to programming, you can study the official Swift documentation (Chinese version) released by Apple without learning Objective-C first.

I'm learning Objective-C, should I switch to Swift?

It depends. If you are learning iOS as a hobby or out of curiosity, then switch to Swift. If you are looking to pursue iOS development as a career, then you should know that there are at least 1 million apps out there written in Objective-C. Swift was only released in 2014, so there is a high probability that your future professional app development will still be in Objective-C. So you need to learn Objective-C to get a job until Swift becomes the standard, which will probably take a few years. Learning two languages ​​at the same time will also be beneficial to you. Your future boss may even ask you to switch an existing Objective-C app to Swift. However, I have reservations about this point of view, because the most important part of an app is its functionality rather than the language it uses, so rewriting existing apps may not be popular.

I recommend Swift for beginners because it is a friendly language and easy to learn thanks to playgrounds. Once you learn Swift, it will be easier to learn Objective-C if you consider iOS development as a career.

***, Swift is a modern language. If you learn Swift, you are also preparing for the future, because Swift will be the language used by the next generation of applications (including applications on Apple Watch). Swift is Apple's gift to everyone. There are no Swift developers in the world with 5 years of experience, but if you start learning Swift now, you will become one in 5 years.

My best advice is, no matter which language you choose, learn it and master it. You will find that as long as you know the iOS SDK, it is not important which language you use. And after learning one language, it is easy to start learning another. The most important thing is to start learning now.

Link to this article: http://www.cocoachina.com/ios/20140923/9732.html