Apple released the first public beta of the Swift programming language just over three months ago. Within days of the release myself and Matt Galloway (author of Effective Objective-C) started working on our book Swift by Tutorials.
After a tremendous amount of work, that has seen us update our chapters numerous times through 6 different beta releases, I am happy to say that the book is finally finished and shipping:
… all this just days after Swift 1.0 was released and the NDA lifted!
One question I have been asked a few times is “Why buy this book when Apple has published two free books on the Swift programming language?”. This is a very good question, the Apple books are very well written and a credit to their authors (who I had the pleasure of meeting at iOSDevUK 2014). However, our book is different in a number of ways:
- Style - Swift by Tutorials follows the same approach as all the other Ray Wenderlich tutorials and books, where we lead the user through the learning process step by step. Nothing is missed, we guarantee you will not get lost!
- Depth - There are certain topics that the Apple books do not cover, such as how to approach functional programming and topics such as partial application and currying.
- Practical - We tend to cover topics in a practical way by building in-depth examples or apps. The final chapter of the book is a re-write of an Objective-C app with a detailed discussion of the differences.
- Advice - There’s a lot of practical advice in the book through PRO-TIPs and general experience.
I see our book and Apple’s as complementary. Apple have given a great reference, whereas our book provides you with a guided tutorial.
I genuinely think Swift is an excellent language; it is modern, concise, safe and powerful and I would recommend that every iOS developer starts learning it!
Regards, Colin E.