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I can't wait to start. Swift is a loosely typed programming language, which makes it easier for us to declare constants and variables without specifying the type. The problem is just getting used to the changes and using .swift and .h and .m files together with mix and match. And then not being able to release apps if you downloaded Xcode 6 or Yosemite -_-

I haven't dug too deep into things, but I was under the impression Swift is a strongly typed language with type inference.
 
Swift looks pretty cool, and I'm excited to start learning it at some point.....

.....but the visual part of me wishes that the white bird in the icon were flying upwards towards the top right corner instead downwards towards the bottom right corner. I guess I just have to deal with it!
Birds are only swift when they are in a dive. Think things through please.
 
... the visual part of me wishes that the white bird in the icon were flying upwards towards the top right corner instead downwards towards the bottom right corner.
I guess I just have to deal with it!

Nahhh .... Here ya go:
s1qis8.jpg
 
How can I learn the language without having any other programming experience? Is there a class I can take in university?

Almost certain there is a "101" programming class. Almost certainly it does NOT use Swift. Maybe it uses java it whatever but that odes not matter you'd not be writing graphical iSO apps in your first year an any case. Take the intro series and learn basic programming then a new language is easy to learn in six weeks.

The key, of douse is to give away your TV and any video games you might own.
 
The iBook is okay.. but certainly not complete, Here's to hoping that the folks at "Big Nerd Ranch" and Stephen Kochan can get some helpful books out soon.

Also, I wish Apple's documentation (iBook) was printable, it is often easier for me to read and markup/make notes on a physical copy.
 
Absolutely! There wasn't a murmur of this leading up to WWDC. I watched the keynote, and my jaw just about hit the floor when they announced Swift. Yes, definitely could have been a 'one more thing' if Jobs had been around to deliver the keynote. And it's interesting to know that this was started under his watch.

John Siracusa at Ars Technica has been talking for years about Objective-C becoming obsolete and Apple's dilemma in transitioning to something new. I guess a lot of us hoped that might be MacRuby, until Apple ditched it in 2011. Now we know why.

Let's just hope Siracusa's other big call to action—for a new file system—is also being worked on secretly inside Apple somewhere.

But yeah, exciting times! I think this is a good sign that Apple is future-focused and is probably working on a ground-up new operating system. They've done a heroic job keeping OS X relevant, but it really is getting time to start thinking about starting fresh with a modern set of assumptions and technologies. Obviously Swift is going to play a big role in whatever they've got planned.
 
Let's just hope Siracusa's other big call to action—for a new file system—is also being worked on secretly inside Apple somewhere.

This.

HFS+ isn't the worst filesystem I've ever dealt with, but in terms of filesystems being used by modern OS's, it's the worst hands down.
 
Swift was far and away my favorite announcement at WWDC. If that had been the only announcement I would have been thrilled. While I've been a developer for many years, C has never been something I enjoyed working with and Objective C has some of the most awkward, archaic syntax in existence. It's just not a language I ever ENJOYED working with.

Swift, on the other hand, looks like my cup of tea (from what I gathered reading the iBook anyway). Most of my recent years have been spent with Ruby and, to a lesser extent, Scala so Swift is really, really exciting and inviting.
 
This.

HFS+ isn't the worst filesystem I've ever dealt with, but in terms of filesystems being used by modern OS's, it's the worst hands down.

What would be best for Apple? I like ZFS but I just can not see how it could be used in Mac OS X. Either it would have to be stripped down with many features defaulted or it would be to complex for most users.

I think Apple needs something that works with distributed storage. Say you have a NAS, some external USB3 drives and some SSD. A good file system would hide all of that from you. Keep the most used data on the faster locations and use the excess capacity for redundancy. I little bit lie Drobo, you add storage (anyplace) the the file system puts it to use. I don't like the idea of named volumes and needing to remember what data is on which volume. The data should all be in the same name space like URLs.
 
Crap.

Bought an introduction to Objective-C a couple of weeks ago (aimed at peoples with no programming experience at all...like me :p)

Can I get a refund ?
 
I'm going to go against the flow, I think Swift seems utterly pointless.

Another new language only used on Apple is another barrier for people getting involved with Mac development. Apple also has a history of offering bridges and then giving up, remember Python?

The playgrounds/interactive programming is all well and good when you have an extremely simple example like they had in the keynote. I'd be interested in seeing how it works with a larger, complex project.

Even then, their example was a game. Anyone with half a brain will be using an engine to create their games. Frankly, Apple's efforts with SpriteKit and SceneKit (or whatever it was called) is far too little far too late. There's engines using a variety of languages that not only use more commonly used languages but are also easily portable to other architectures. You'd be an absolute fool to use the basic tools that Apple are offering.
 
I haven't dug too deep into things, but I was under the impression Swift is a strongly typed language with type inference.

Correct; it is not loosely typed. You often don't have to declare the type because the compiler can infer it, and you cannot change the type of a variable during its lifetime.
 
Another new language only used on Apple is another barrier for people getting involved with Mac development. Apple also has a history of offering bridges and then giving up, remember Python?
.

Remember Dylan?

Anyway, that's what they said about Objective-C; look at it now. For a subset of people who want to write iOS apps swift will be a lot easier. I'd rather write in swift than in Objective-C, and I've been doing ObjC for like 3 years...and I haven't even finished the book yet.

When you mean "pointless", you probably mean "pointless outside of Apple." And that's probably true. But this is an Apple forum and an Apple thing, so who the ***** cares? I mean, how many other companies use Objective-C for anything? Zero. Is that a technological failure?

I can count the number of people who use Erlang that I've met by counting the number of tails I have. Does that mean Erlang is pointless?

Will it lower the technical barrier to writing for iOS? Swift should. That's the only metric for success that Apple should care about. If it spreads beyond that, great, that's gravy.
 
As someone that doesn't know how to program, I've been constantly told that programming teaches you a 'different way to think'. Naturally, the idea of creating Mac and iOS apps seems appealing.

I'd like to know if Swift is a good first computer language, or if it's too early to say. I've also heard Ruby (or maybe it was Ruby on Rails?) is a good first language.

But I guess what I'm asking is, would any programmers recommend this as a good starting point?

I've always felt that Ruby was a programmer's programming language, that is to say, it's really only fully appreciated by people who are already experienced coders. It's a fantastic language, but if I was going to suggest a very first language, I'd start with something like Java or C++. Both were languages taught in AP Computer Science classes, to give you an idea of how easy they are to learn and use as a medium for learning computer science. You can learn the basics on languages like those and start to understand the logic of computing before you worry about more "advanced" features like generics, closures, and so on. Go and learn object-oriented programming, get a feel for loops, switches, inheritance, data structures, and I/O. After that, go learn Ruby if you want, or dive right into Swift.

One of the reasons why Swift has gotten so many developers excited, while a lot of the tech media is a bit confused by it, is because it's really the sort of thing you need to understand the background of, and have experience in other languages first, before you can fully appreciate what Apple is trying to do.

Bottom line, I think Swift would be overwhelming to you right now. I think Ruby would leave you ill-prepared for other languages. At the very least, wait for Swift to get some good books out first. Apple's eBook is really not intended for beginners. Give it six months and you'll have a wide selection of "Swift for Beginners" books from great computer language educators.
 
What would be best for Apple? I like ZFS but I just can not see how it could be used in Mac OS X. Either it would have to be stripped down with many features defaulted or it would be to complex for most users.

I think Apple needs something that works with distributed storage. Say you have a NAS, some external USB3 drives and some SSD. A good file system would hide all of that from you. Keep the most used data on the faster locations and use the excess capacity for redundancy. I little bit lie Drobo, you add storage (anyplace) the the file system puts it to use. I don't like the idea of named volumes and needing to remember what data is on which volume. The data should all be in the same name space like URLs.

"ZFS+" ?
The + bit being for an Apple license-free clean version, lol!

...NOT like anything Drobo, that's for sure – s l o wwwwwww and unreliable.
 
I would be curious to see if there will be support in open source compilers for this language. I don't want to be a party pooper, but I prefer programming languages that are open and have support in more than one platform/compiler (let's say C, C++, Java, Basic, etc.). I think to really make it into university classes they would have to have a compiler that works in Linux or any other UNIX like OS.

By the way, first time I heard about LLVM compiler technology was from a colleague (compiler expert) who was joining Apple. He told me in the way to Amber Restaurant in Mountain View where we happened to bump into Steve Jobs (this was a few years back).
 
As someone that doesn't know how to program, I've been constantly told that programming teaches you a 'different way to think'. Naturally, the idea of creating Mac and iOS apps seems appealing.

I'd like to know if Swift is a good first computer language, or if it's too early to say. I've also heard Ruby (or maybe it was Ruby on Rails?) is a good first language.

But I guess what I'm asking is, would any programmers recommend this as a good starting point?

I'm curious about this too.
 
For this to happen Swift will need to be available on non-apple hardware and operating systems. If Swift is now part of LLVM, then I think that might happen.

They've said they can't guarantee source code compatibility for the time being. They're waiting on developer feedback and may change some things. But, I think eventually they will probably open it up for other platforms. At the very least, somebody will write an interpreter I'm sure.

It's a brand new language. We should all give Apple a little bit of time before calls for standardization get made.

----------

Swift was far and away my favorite announcement at WWDC. If that had been the only announcement I would have been thrilled. While I've been a developer for many years, C has never been something I enjoyed working with and Objective C has some of the most awkward, archaic syntax in existence. It's just not a language I ever ENJOYED working with.

Swift, on the other hand, looks like my cup of tea (from what I gathered reading the iBook anyway). Most of my recent years have been spent with Ruby and, to a lesser extent, Scala so Swift is really, really exciting and inviting.

This was far and away the most developer-centric WWDC keynote in recent memory. Even the consumer-oriented stuff this year was really developer-centric, in a "hey, look what we did and there's APIs for it all too" kind of way. I can only imagine what the atmosphere at WWDC is like right now. Probably quite electric. I'm sure all the developers at home are chomping at the bit for another round of Tech Talks, too. I'm personally watching as many videos as I can on the dev site.
 
This.

HFS+ isn't the worst filesystem I've ever dealt with, but in terms of filesystems being used by modern OS's, it's the worst hands down.

Secret tip: The media browser is the new object-oriented filesystem.

That, combined with iCloud/CloudKit, is why Apple isn't going to release a new filesystem.
 
What would be best for Apple? I like ZFS but I just can not see how it could be used in Mac OS X. Either it would have to be stripped down with many features defaulted or it would be to complex for most users.

I think Apple needs something that works with distributed storage. Say you have a NAS, some external USB3 drives and some SSD. A good file system would hide all of that from you. Keep the most used data on the faster locations and use the excess capacity for redundancy. I little bit lie Drobo, you add storage (anyplace) the the file system puts it to use. I don't like the idea of named volumes and needing to remember what data is on which volume. The data should all be in the same name space like URLs.

The best thing would be for Apple to build their own file system, rather than rely on something that already exists like ZFS. Only Apple knows what kind of features they need to support now, and in the future.
 
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