Swift is Now Open Sourced
Last year Apple introduced a new programming language for coding an app – Swift. First, it was designed for OS X or iOS, and now it is taking a new round: Swift is going to become open-sourced. This is a new language developed by Apple, and its official version was available at its website Swift.org and now developers will have an opportunity to reach it through GitHub.
From now, other developers will be able to study Swift in great detail, pitch in its development, and most importantly – bring it to the other platforms.
Now Swift is available for Linux, Windows, and Android
Apple has already released a version of Swift for Linux. That was more for Apple’s partners to let them create consumer-facing applications in Swift. This time, they are going to exceed the language’s possibilities.
Apple is not going to work on other versions of Swift, but they open source the code to let developers bring it to Android and Windows on their own.
Apple states that they are expecting Swift to become a central and the most widely-used programming language of the next twenty years. If that is so, it is crucial to make it available for the biggest mobile and desktop platforms.
Open-sourcing is not that uncommon for Apple. iOS’s ResearchKit also became open-sourced this year, as well as Safari has been available for developers for a long time.
Open-sourcing doesn’t mean that Apple hands Swift over to other companies. They are still working on its development, but the process now becomes more open. Developers from other companies are free to join Apple and help them direct Swift’s further development as well as offer new ideas and contribute to Swift’s effectiveness.
It’s not that easy to get to the App Store
With the help of this new website, developers will be able to download Swift and start working on new versions of it, but that version of it would not allow creating applications that can enter App Store. Those who want to locate their apps in the App Store still have to pay a fee and utilize the official version of this programming language. The official version will be behind the open-source one, synchronizing with it from time to time, when new additions get to be sustainable and stable.
GitHub is going to be a community for developers. It will have a mailing list, a bug tracking system, and an engineering blog along with useful tutorials and instructions.
This language is expected to work faster than the previous ones, including built-in protection against the most common errors and issues. In addition, Swift could be used for watchOS and tvOS applications.
With all that effectiveness and flexibility along with the support of Apple, Swift has all chances to become the most popular programming language. Analysts report that Swift is developing faster than any other language. Thus, open-sourcing will make it grow and move forward.
See also: 5 Best Programming Languages for Mobile App Development
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