If you knew nothing about Swift, you've come to the right place. In this article we'll explain what it is and how popular it is, as well as some of the facilities it offers.

Apple made the decision to launch this programming language in 2014, in addition to the computers, phones, tablets and other products it offers. The popularity of the Swift programming language has received a considerable boost among application developers rather quickly.

According to a July 2016 statistic by RedMonk (full article here), Swift ranked 17th among the top programming languages. The ranking took into account popularity and not necessarily the level of use of this programming language, or how many lines of code have been written using it over time.

Specially designed to support the development of iOS and OS X systems, Swift is a compiled programming language. What does this mean? Swift incorporates elements inspired by multiple other programming languages, incorporating only the best features to provide complete ease of use for application developers and programmers. Among the programming language elements that inspired the creators of Swift are C, Objective-C, Rust, Python, Ruby or Haskel.

The entire documentation for this programming language is made available by Apple. Those interested should also know that Swift runs on two distinct interfaces:

• Cocoa interface - for OS X operating system
• Cocoa Touch interface - for iOS operating system

Specific elements of the Swift programming language

Although it must be discovered, like any other programming language, it is very important to know a few specific elements before deepening.

Elements inspired from other programming languages are sometimes noticeable, sometimes not. For the connoisseur, the syntax is similar to C and Objective-C. A notable difference would be the fact that you don't have to put semicolons after each statement.

Another interesting and very useful element included in Swift is an interface called Playgrounds. It can be very useful for a programmer to observe how lines of code are analyzed and compiled - this is exactly what Playgrounds provides. It effectively opens up new opportunities for program development in a much more intuitive way than other programming languages.

The abandonment of semicolons in the syntax, as well as several other elements, have made Swift a much easier, more flexible language. In this respect it could be compared to languages like Python or Ruby.

For some, the fact that Swift was made strictly for Apple app developers may be seen as a shortcoming. It is a slight resistance from those programmers who are looking for a language in which to develop programs and applications for various platforms. However, Swift still retains its place in the previously mentioned popularity top.

Another feature offered by Swift has been designed to make it more useful in terms of the memory used for processed data. Swift includes an "automatic garbage collection" system, which means that it removes all unnecessary information from memory. This feature relieves programmers from memory management.

An overview shows that Swift is not something entirely new, something entirely different. Elements inspired by other established programming languages prove this. However, for developing applications and programs for OS X and iOS operating systems, it is the ideal, intuitive, easy and flexible alternative.