“In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different”

                                                                                                   – Coco Chanel

Introduction To Swift:

Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm, object-oriented, functional, imperative and block structured language. It is the result of the latest research on programming languages and is built using a modern approach towards safety, software design patterns by Apple Inc. It is a brand new programming language for iOS applications, macOS applications, watchOS applications, tvOS applications. It became one of top 5 programming language and gained popularity among Apple’s developer community over the few years of time replacing the old school Objective C.

Features Of Swift:

• Safe – The obvious way of writing any code is in a safe manner. It is important that the developer’s mistakes must be caught before the software goes into production. Going with safety Swift might feel a bit strict, but in the long run, clarity saves a lot of time.
• Fast – Swift is meant to be a replacement for languages based on C (C++, Objective c and C). Swift’s performance is comparable to these languages in most tasks. The performance also has to be consistent and predictable, not just for short bursts that would require a lot of work later on.
• Expressive-Swift offers a syntax that is easy to use and has the features that most developers expect. Even now the languages advancements are being monitored, which means that swift is continuously evolving.

Swift also borrows some features from other languages, like the named parameters brought from Objective C are written with a clean syntax which makes the APIs much easier to maintain and read. Some additional features of swift are –

• Multiple return values and Tuples.
• Generics
• Concise and fast iteration over a collection or range.
• Structs which support extensions, methods, and protocols.
• Functional programming patterns.
• Advanced control flow
• Powerful error handling

As now we have had a brief introduction to Swift Programming Language, its uses and the features it offers, we will now be discussing where you can learn Swift from i.e., the best websites you can visit to learn Swift.

Top Websites To Learn Swift In 2019:

1. Swift.org:

This is an official Swift blog managed by Apple Inc. It provides all the information about how to use the Swift programming language. For anyone new to Swift, it provides A Swift Tour in The Swift Programming Language, for a real quick introduction to the most important concepts and features of the language.

2. Ray Wenderlich- iOS & Swift Tutorials:

Ray Wenderlich is a reputed person in the iOS industry and his resources provide incredible amount of useful resources for learning Swift. Ray Wenderlich started as a one-man venture and it has now grown into a massive tutorial operation with dozens of skilled developers sharing their knowledge in written, audio, and video formats. Ray Wenderlich started it all, but it’s far bigger than himself now.

The site focuses mainly on game development and there are sections dedicated to engines like Unity and Unreal, but there’s a wealth of information for fundamentals in Cocoa, Objective C, and now Swift.

3. AppCoda:

AppCoda is an educational startup that focuses on teaching people how to learn Swift & iOS programming blog. AppCoda has a huge amount of tutorials available online, mostly everything is up-to-date & it is using the latest version of the Swift programming language.

It mainly emphasizes on developing high quality and easy-to-read iOS programming tutorials in both Swift and Objective-C for anyone who wants to learn iOS programming and pursue app development.

4. NSHippster:

NSHipster is a journal of the overlooked bits in Objective-C, Swift, and Coco. NSHippster is an amazing place for in-depth learning specific Cocoa topics. If you want to learn method swizzling, Swift literal convertibles, NSFileManager, iCloud or Clang diagnostics, you should  Go and read all the archives, this is the site for you.

5. objc.io:

Objc is a monthly periodical which includes the best practices and advanced techniques for iOS and OS X development. Every issue is focused on anyone, specific topic like audio, Swift or Core Data. It is probably not the best website for true beginners, but if you already know the basics of iOS development, go there and learn some intermediate and advanced topics too. The objc.io guys are providing one of the best written and video resources if it comes to Swift development.

6. Treehouse:

Treehouse is a very well-known name in the web dev world, especially as a venue to learn to code for free. There are over 1,000 high-quality videos spanning a variety of topics such as web design, website development, and entrepreneurship.

Treehouse makes it possible for beginners to learn at their own pace and choose different types of coding languages for all levels, from elementary to advanced. If you are interested in coding but you have no idea where to start, Treehouse will walk you through the entire learning process.

7. hackingwithswift.com:

Paul Hudson offers one of the biggest collection of Swift learning materials. He has written several books, updates his site regularly and is a personal favorite for many new and experienced learners. He has also created a guide about how to learn Swift programming for free in 2019. This year Paul also launched a quick video series about Xcode.

8. pointfree.co:

Point-Free is a video series about functional programming and the Swift programming language where each episode covers a topic that may seem complex and academic at first but eventually turns out to be quite simple. It promises free content, but you have to pay for most of the videos that they make, although some nice resources are available for free on their website.

9. Swifty:

Swifty is an app that teaches Apple’s new programming language,  on your iPhone. You just have to enter Swifty, an app will appear that provides an interactive set of tutorials that will gradually guide you through the basics of Swift on your iPhone or iPad. It is mainly aimed at people who want to learn the programming language while on transit.

10. EnvatoTuts+:

Envato Tuts is home to an enormous range of tutorials, courses, articles, eBooks, news, and community that can help you learn Swift and other skills. Tuts+ is a great place for beginners, not only because of the easy to read tutorials, but also because of a few selected topics. They cover the basics of iOS development starting from  creating the first app, first steps into Foundation and UIKit, how table view works and many, many more.

11. iOS Dev Weekly:

It is one of the best weekly newsletters made by Dave Verwer. It covers about iOS development — hot news, dev tutorials, tools, design and marketing articles — everything that every iOS programmer needs.

12. SoSoSwift:

SoSoSwift is a key site for anyone interested in the language, whether newbie or veteran or even just bystander. SoSoSwift has one of the largest collection of Swift language tutorials on the internet. It also provides all the latest news about the Swift language and community. Its frequency is about 1 post per month.

13. useyourloaf.com:

useyourlaf.com is a very useful blog from the author Keith Harrison. It’s a personal blog all about his learning experiences and developing iOS apps since 2010. Great programming blog run by an iOS, Mac and Ruby on Rails developer. How to create a CocoaPod, how to read QR codes, how to write effective Objective-C 2.0 and more. A lot of practical, real-life examples.

14. littlebitesofcocoa.com:

Little Bites of Cocoa is a publication which is aimed at providing small, bite-sized tips and tricks for iOS and Mac development, hence the name. The goal of each of these bites is to give the reader a brief overview or explanation of a particular concept, technique, or tool. Bites are not intended to replace full API documentation, but rather to compliment it.

15. theswiftdev.com:

If you want to get a monthly overview of what happened in the Swift community, then this is one of the best newsletters blogs.

16. GitHub:

GitHub is a social platform for developers which allows developers to host and review code from open source to business, manage projects, and build software alongside 36 million developers.

It is one of the best ways to learn fast — see what other programmers do, read their code and inhale good practices from them.

17. Stack Overflow:

Stack Overflow isn’t a blog or website with tutorials like most of the sites mentioned above. Stack Overflow is a Q&A (questions and answers) community focused on programming in general, not only on iOS.

Here you can ask your questions and get great answers, you can also comment and help other people with their code, you can also just browse some code snippets and solutions for popular programming problems which may be helpful to your project.

18. Udemy:

It is a paid course, but it focuses strictly on Swift. 13 hours of content divided into 194 lessons will teach you A LOT about the iOS programming language of choice. There are many more courses in Udemy itself which teaches you advanced levels of Swift.

19. Coursera:

This University of Toronto based provides a four-course specialization on iOS development. It will help you to learn to design elegant interactions and ultimately allows you to create a fully functional iOS app at the end of the course.

20. iOS Developer Blog:

It provides iOS development News, Tools, Code snippets, Techniques, Productivity Hacks, Tutorials, and Videos.

Conclusion:

Since people are slowly moving from Objective C to Swift, it is becoming what they say as
“The future of iOS app development”. However, learning iOS development is not a difficult task as long as you have a strong interest and stick to it. And in this article, I have tried to include all the useful websites that one could refer to in order t lean iOS development. I hope that you find this article useful in your quest to learn Swift and I wish you all the very best for it!!

Also Read:

Top Programming Languages to Learn In 2019