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iOS

Posted by judah simon
judah simon
4,886 Points

IOS Development

If i am a newbie to ios app dev, should i learn objective-c or go straight to Swift?

Michael Vilabrera
Michael Vilabrera
Courses Plus Student 11,252 Points

Learn Objective-C first. Most apps and frameworks are still using Obj-C. Also, XCode 6 is unstable so any reliable development you would do will be on XCode 5 (no Swift). Once the user base increases and the language matures, you will learn Swift much more quickly and be able to use all the great stuff in Obj-C

judah simon
judah simon
4,886 Points

is swift based on objective-c?

4 Answers

Alexander Batalov
Alexander Batalov
21,887 Points
Alexander Batalov
Alexander Batalov
21,887 Points

I'm not a pro... But I would recommend go for Swift. It's easier for beginners, it's modern, it's easier to read other peoples code and it's fun with playgrounds. The only reason I see to learn Objective-C if you going to join company that already have Obj-c projects going on, so you will have to deal with it's code. Finally I believe that within a year or two all major companies and indie developers will use Swift.

Gregg Mojica
Gregg Mojica
11,506 Points
Gregg Mojica
Gregg Mojica
11,506 Points

I would advise you learn objective c. Objective c is a very established language and will likely be around for a while more. The great thing about swift is that you can learn swift much easier when learning objective c first - the switch is simple.

Additionally, all developers for ios have been working with objective-c for the past several years (since the sdk came out) so there's endless resources written in objective c. You can call objective-c methods, etc. from swift code.

Learning objective-c will make you a better ios developer.

Plus, treehouse has a ton of material on Objective C

Dyna Diamond
PLUS
Dyna Diamond
Courses Plus Student 904 Points
Dyna Diamond
Dyna Diamond
Courses Plus Student 904 Points

Learn both.

Ricardo Hill-Henry
Ricardo Hill-Henry
38,443 Points
Ricardo Hill-Henry
Ricardo Hill-Henry
38,443 Points

Learn both. Since you can use both Objective-C, and Swift in the same project; one will step on the other. Swift has a easier learning curve, and the fundamentals learned for app development in Swift can be applied to Objective-C. Learning a language, especially one like Objective-C can take years. It certainly doesn't make sense to commit that much time to learn language then be told by employers, they're now looking for Swift developers. Apple is implementing Swift into new devices both mobile and stationary. The best way to think of Swift, is just an easier, and modern way to write in Objective-C (very loosely stated). I do believe Swift is also backwards compatible, and can access Objective-C libraries (vice versa as well).

Basically, it's up to you. However, if you're completely new to programming, I can almost guarantee Objective-C will be overwhelming. With that said, I do however that due to Objective-C's lack of simplicity, you get the advantage of gaining a bit more insight into what's going on.