Best Swift Books

by Bradley Nice, Content Manager at ClickHelp.com — software documentation tool

First of all, what is Swift?

Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple Inc. for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux. (Wikipedia)

It’s an easy programming language to learn, which is why many students, entry-level developers, and Mac and iOS developers are focused on Swift. In addition, Apple open sourced Swift, making it available for developing on other platforms, not just those designed by Apple.

Let’s take a look into pros and cons of Swift language (acc. to altexsoft.com)

Pros:

• Rapid development process

A clean and expressive language with a simplified syntax and grammar, Swift is easier to read and write. Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) does all the work tracking and managing the app’s memory usage, so developers don’t need to spend time and effort doing that manually. Accordingly, it usually takes less time to build iOS apps with Swift.

• Easier to scale the product and the team

Your products are future-proof and can be extended with new features as needed.

• Improved safety and performance
• Interoperability with Objective-C

As Jordan Morgan, iOS developer at Buffer, wrote in his Medium post, “[…] swift is the new toy and marked as the future. Objective-C is showing its age and will, eventually, be much less prevalent. But in the here and the now, the two must learn to coexist peacefully.”

Swift language is perfectly compatible with Objective-C and can be used interchangeably within the same project.

• Full stack potential and cross-device support

Server-side Swift integrates with most of the popular backend technologies. Using Swift on both backend and frontend of your app allows for extensive code sharing and reuse, speeding up the development process and reducing development efforts.

The Cons

• Swift is still quite young

Swift is still too young and it has many issues that need to be addressed and “growing pains” to experience. Three years is too little time for any language to mature.

• Swift is considered a “moving target”

Swift is often considered to be unstable due to the major changes that are introduced with every new release. One of the key problems is the lack of backward compatibility with the older language versions. Consequently, developers are forced to completely rewrite their projects if they want to switch to the latest Swift version.

That was a little introduction to the language for those who are not familiar with it. So now let’s pass over to some of the best Swift books in 2017.

iOS 10 Programming Fundamentals with Swift: Swift, Xcode, and Cocoa Basics (eBook — $29.49, paperback — $41.61)

Move into iOS development by getting a firm grasp of its fundamentals, including the Xcode IDE, the Cocoa Touch framework, and Swift 3 — the latest version of Apple’s acclaimed programming language. With this thoroughly updated guide, you’ll learn Swift’s object-oriented concepts, understand how to use Apple’s development tools, and discover how Cocoa provides the underlying functionality iOS apps need to have.

• Explore Swift’s object-oriented concepts: variables and functions, scopes and namespaces, object types and instances
• Become familiar with built-in Swift types such as numbers, strings, ranges, tuples, Optionals, arrays, dictionaries, and sets
• Learn how to declare, instantiate, and customize Swift object types: enums, structs, and classes
• Discover powerful Swift features such as protocols and generics
• Catch up on Swift 3 innovations: revised APIs, new Foundation bridged types, and more
• Tour the lifecycle of an Xcode project from inception to App Store — including Xcode’s new automatic code signing and debugging features
• Construct app interfaces with the nib editor, Interface Builder
• Understand Cocoa’s event-driven model and its major design patterns and features
• Find out how Swift communicates with Cocoa’s C and Objective-C APIs

Learning Swift: Building Apps for macOS, iOS, and Beyond (eBook — $29.49, paperback — $30.82)

Get valuable hands-on experience with Swift 3, the latest version of Apple’s programming language. With this practical guide, skilled programmers with little or no knowledge of Apple development will learn how to code with Swift 3 by developing three complete, tightly linked versions of the Notes application for the OS X, iOS, and watchOS platforms.

In the process, you’ll learn Swift’s fundamentals, including its syntax and features, along with the basics of the Cocoa, CocoaTouch, and WatchKit frameworks. This book teaches you how to use common design patterns for Swift, how to structure an application for Apple’s platforms, and how to submit working apps to the App Store.

Divided into four distinct parts, this book includes:

• Swift 2 basics: Learn Swift’s basic building blocks and features for object-oriented development
• OS X app development: Set up the document model, build out features, and sync data with iCloud
• iOS app development: Use multimedia, contacts, location, notifications, and iCloud files to build a fully featured iOS Notes app
• Advanced app extensions: Build an Apple Watch app, and learn how to debug, monitor, and test all three of your Swift apps

iOS 10 in Swift 3 (eBook — $31.85, paperback — $47.92)

iOS 10 in Swift 3 will take you from absolute beginner to functional iOS developer learning the concepts, techniques, and tools needed to build professional iOS applications using Xcode 8, iOS 10, and Swift 3. After completing this book, you will have the skills and confidence you need to to build and design your own iOS apps and apply for jr. iOS development jobs. This book is patterned after the widely popular & fun hands-on training that Devslopes has provided to over 100,000 students worldwide. Unlike other books and training, this book teaches you through real-world app development — projects you would actually build in a job or startup, including learning UI/UX & app design with Sketch. You’ll get different insights from each member of Team Devslopes that will help you become a lifelong programmer and amazing iOS app designer & developer.

Mastering Swift 3 (eBook — $26.42, paperback — $44.99)

About This Book

• Discover the new features and improvements to Swift 3
• Get to grips with advanced design patterns and techniques to write smarter, cleaner Swift code
• Become a more fluent Swift developer and build powerful, impressive iOS and OS X applications.

Who This Book Is For

This book is for developers who want to dive into the newest version of Swift.

If you are a developer that learns best by looking at, and working with code, then this book is for you. A basic understanding of Apple’s tools is beneficial but not mandatory.

What You Will Learn

• Dive into the core components of Swift 3.0, including operators, collections, control flow, and functions
• Create and use classes, structures, and enums
• Understand object-oriented Swift and see how to tackle inheritance, protocols, and extensions
• Develop a practical understanding of subscripts, optionals, and closures
• See how to use the new protocol extension and error handling features of Swift 3.0
• Add concurrency to your applications using Grand Central Dispatch

Swift Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (eBook — $23.35, paperback — $32.05)

Through the authors’ carefully constructed explanations and examples, you will develop an understanding of Swift grammar and the elements of effective Swift style. This book is written for Swift 3.0 and will also show you how to navigate Xcode 8 and get the most out of Apple’s documentation.

Throughout the book, the authors share their insights into Swift to ensure that you understand the hows and whys of Swift and can put that understanding to use in different contexts.

After working through the book, you will have the knowledge and confidence to develop your own solutions to a wide range of programming challenges using Swift.

Have a nice day!

Bradley Nice,
Content Manager at ClickHelp.com — best online documentation tool for SaaS vendors