Swift - FAQ

Second that Dino!

third!

third!

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fifth!

sixth!

7th

:3 hey I know this is a noob question, but how do you add links to comments or tag somebody in treehouse to ask them a question?

Kalson Kalu, you type "@" and then their name. Links are done like this: "[link text](URL)" without the quotes.

My developer license lapsed last month (been doing more Ruby learning so thought I'd wait to renew). Will wait until I see you all release your course. I've already gone through the book a little, but guidance is always preferable. :)

If you want to play around with Swift then the best way to do it using the Playground feature. Open up Xcode 6 then from the menu select File -> New -> Select Source on the left -> Select Playground on the right. The Playground is a great way to practice the language. We will posting code of the Crystal Ball app using Swift soon.

I can't wait for that!

already! your the man make us a tutorial lol

LOL I did not make it, just found it :)

:P

Good idea, Marcus!

For me to teach a Swift course effectively I would have to teach it using the latest version of Xcode and the playground feature both of which are under the Apple NDA until the public release of iOS. We are already working on a completely new Swift based track which we intend to release once the NDA is lifted.

That said would you be interested in a Swift course that explained the code with me actually typing it? You could follow along by typing it yourself in the playground but we couldn't show you the playground in the video. Or as you mentioned you could simply watch the video while on the go.

Amit, yes absolutely I would be interested in a preliminary video course that does not violate the NDA. If you could do a preliminary video course that covers the Swift's modern programming language concepts like the ones listed below:

Closures unified with function pointers, Tuples and multiple return values, Generics, Fast and concise iteration over a range or collection, Structs that support methods, extensions, protocols, and Functional programming patterns, e.g.: map and filter

The above modern language features are the ones that programmers brag about but they tend to be misunderstood and often not used by many programmers.

And also if you could cover the Swift "safe programming" features where the language guards against "null values" and also buffer overflows would be fascinating.

A lot of us can't wait until iOS 8 ships to learn the language and we don't want to be left behind. :-)

Too bad the NDA is so limiting... but I'd still like to see the playground in action. Maybe Amit Bijlani could teach the basics in Sublime Text 2 but release the advanced projects later on when Apple allows it.

The book is focused primarily on documenting the language and its features. Apple assumes you know how to write apps already so they leave the rest up to you. I guess this is where we come in, to teach you how to build apps using Swift. As I mentioned in my FAQ. Learning Objective-C is not going to be obsolete overnight. I would still encourage you to go through the current iOS track because once you understand the language and APIs it will be easier for you to make the switch to Swift.

Sorry, Amer Dababneh , should have added the comment to your question. :)

"I would assume that since its using the same compiler then yes, apps written in Swift should function on older devices. BUT... I could be wrong. :)"

Thanks Reuben :)

if you are doing the iOS track you want to do the obj c course first. I would not skip it. The iOS courses after that assume you have a pretty good grasp of the objective C language basics that are covered in the first course. Its a very short course and it will be well worth the time.

I'm hopeful that they'll do a "beginner" course, or at the very least an intro to Swift just to ensure that people just starting out get an introduction to the syntax. In reading through the Swift iBook, it does seem that there are enough subtle differences that warrant introduction, especially for those still in the early days of learning.

Reuben Varzea yes, I have been reading through the manual as well, swift is really interesting and this change made me interested in iOS development, I really hope they will cover iOS development practices from the very beginning, as this is not covered in iBook

We will be doing a course and track from the ground up so you get to learn iOS development from a completely fresh perspective with no previous knowledge. I think a lot of people are going to be interested in learning iOS development now since the syntax is a little easier to understand.

I agree Amit. Can't wait for the new course.

I'll see what I can find on the forums I assume that it would require at least an iCloud account.

Right now to my knowledge Cloudkit is limited to a paid developer account. I recently renewed my account and saw i able to access the dashboard for it.

For sure! But probably only in iOS dev area, remember parse is a great tool working for other platforms like android and win phone, as well as they offer some additional features that CloudKit doesn't, I guess we'll have to see, but I'd love to learn more about CloudKit.

Really? Don't see anything on their site. Either way Teamtree house will rock it soon enough.

We saw that too and they are clearly violating Apple's NDA by showing the latest version of Xcode. They might not care about their relationship with Apple but we most certainly do and want to avoid any legal hassles. My recent blog post "An Absolute Beginners Guide to Swift" covers everything that course does and it is free!

I don't see it.. Looks like they took it down. : ) #Treehouse > Udemy

Here is the link i still can see. https://www.udemy.com/swift-learn-apples-new-programming-language-by-examples/

but i don't think Udemy course will be better than TTH. I love TTH tutorials.

Udemy is a cool platform, but it doesn't have the unity or quality level of Treehouse IMO. I feel like I could become an instructor on Udemy... "Making bagel pizzas when you need a break from learning ... LIKE A BOSS!"

Ah yes, I didn't search for it later and found it. Your right Lincoln, TTH will rock it more effectively and cheaper. Udemy's pay for each course and its price tags are not a good business model when most things are subscription based.

Guys i would suggest to follow Amits Great blog post about SWIFT http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/an-absolute-beginners-guide-to-swift I just love it.

Bet that Udemy's courses aren't as good as TTH! >:D

Yeah, its too bad

It would be cool if Apple worked out something where third parties could have a separate login or auth for registered developers and from there you could do “beta” courses from Apple's pre-release stuff. Amit Bijlani

there are only 4 swift courses available right now. Swift Basics, Swift Functions and optionals, build a simple iphone app with swift, and the weather app course.

I think it's safe to say that more swift courses will be released in the future.

Thanks. Any ETA? Just curious. :)

Not at the moment. You can always keep an eye out for it here:

http://teamtreehouse.com/roadmap

Yep! Watch the roadmap and Amit Bijlani and Pasan Premaratne will add more course details as the dates firm up. :)

I appreciate it, guys.

We definitely have plans for more Swift content! Right now Object-Oriented Swift is in the works expected to be out this month.