Building a Foundation with Swift

Now that we have had a short tour of Xcode, it is time to start learning about Swift. Remember, if you are new to programming, things will be very different for you, so take your time. The essential skills that you learn here will set you up with a solid foundation in iOS development. If you have previous programming experience, you should still review this chapter, as it can only enhance your programming skills and act as a refresher for you.

On June 2, 2014, Apple changed the game for iOS development, because this was the day they announced Swift to the world. With this announcement, everybody was put on an even playing field, because they had to learn a new programming language. Swift has brought a more modern approach to developing apps and has seen a massive influx of new developers of all ages wanting to build iOS apps. However, enough about history! Let's dig in and look at what you are going to learn about.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• Playgrounds
• Data types
• Variables and constants
• Debug and print()
• Comments