Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

iOS

christopher walsh
christopher walsh
7,272 Points
Posted by christopher walsh
christopher walsh
7,272 Points

Swift as open sourced

Apple made Swift an open sourced language. But I don't really understand what that means. outside of Xcode and making an app, how can you make the language do anything for you, outside the apple ecosystem?

Justin Reed
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Justin Reed
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 33,918 Points

interested to see the answers

2 Answers

Evan Demaris
Evan Demaris
64,262 Points
Evan Demaris
Evan Demaris
64,262 Points

Swift was open source as of 12/03/15; this means that developers can see how Swift is actually functioning and easily make changes or enhancements, and also makes it much easier to use Swift on different devices (so it can run natively instead of needing to be run through an emulator).

Because you can essentially edit Swift to your liking, it can be edited to be more of a general purpose programming language instead of being a programming language exclusively for iOS based devices.

Chris Shaw
Chris Shaw
26,676 Points
Chris Shaw
Chris Shaw
26,676 Points

It already is open-source, you can see the source code on GitHub.

https://github.com/apple/swift