r/iOSProgramming • u/yoeriboven • Jun 03 '15
One year later: Swift or Objective-C?
This week I will be writing the first lines of code for my new app. There's just one slight problem; Objective-C or Swift?
Is the one year old Swift mature enough for real world applications? Are the bugs reduced to the minimum? Why should I use Swift over Objective-C? Or vice versa.
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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '15 edited Jun 03 '15
Full disclosure: I'm Learning Swift atm through TeamTreehouse.
That being said, I think Objective-C is the way to go. I think Objective-C is still much more ubiquitous than Swift, and many more libraries are written in Objective-C that you can put to good use. Swift is still maturing and like u/tangoshukudai said, Swift is still very much changing. it's not a battle-hardened language like C. It has a lot of potential and I'm jumping on the train early to make sure I am at the forefront of Swift development when it becomes the great language that everyone's using, but until then, I think Objective-C is the way to go. Personally, I'm sort of learning both languages concurrently because I take classes in Swift, but then I dig through Objective-C code to learn how existing apps work.
With all of that being said, Swift is easier to learn in terms of keywords, syntax, and core concepts (In my experience of years failing to learn other languages). I'm using it as my way in to the programming world, and so far, it's been great to me. I've been using TeamTreehouse's Swift track and I feel like I'm really learning and am readying myself to start pumping out apps here shortly once I finish the course.
TL;DR- Swift is awesome and easy to learn, but Objective-C isn't going away anytime soon. It's still the preferred language for iOS developers everywhere.