The author of Swift – Chris Lattner – started his journey nearly five years ago, back in 2010. In 2014 – during the Apple’s Worldwide Dev Conference – Swift was announced as a fully functional programming language. Since the announcement, there have been multiple courses and guides on how to learn Swift – some of which grow at a rate of 1,000 students every day. Will Swift revolutionize the way we build mobile friendly applications?
Now, it kind of sucks that Swift is limited to Apple products, right? Well, during my regular web checkup today – I came across an interesting Python tool, it promises to compile Swift and Objective-C++ for Android. The files will be converted into object files that can be used with armv7. You can explore more about this tool on GitHub.
Swift is definitely a very in-demand language right now, and something tells me that the same trend is going to continue for next year as well; and because of that, I think it’s important that developers find the right communities early on, than to try and shuffle through hundreds of communities later on. I’m going to be listing six great communities where you can discuss everything Swift, Apple, and programming in general.
Apple Developer Forum
Did you even know that Apple has an official community boards enabled for registered developers? It can take a little bit of time to get past the registration and verification process, but once you’re there – the resources are endless. What’s more, you can ask all kinds of Apple related questions – and there is a very high chance that not only are you going to solve your problem, but also get some alternative methods as well. The Swift forums is already packed with nearly 20,000 messages. Get reading!
Reddit is great, I use it every day. I like that you can use Reddit as a way of consuming information related to work, but also as a tool to just relax and unwind from the days accumulated stress. The Reddit Swift community is powered by over 7,000 participants who’re willing to answer questions, offer advice, and perhaps even work with you together on a project. Don’t let those opportunities slide.
StackOverflow
You only need to know one thing – the StackOverflow community hates repetition and weak questions, if you can manage to avoid both at the same time – you’re in for a pleasant learning experience. I wish I was kidding, but this community truly is ‘dedicated’ to its craft. Already, there are more than 11,000 unique questions related to the Swift programming language; I refuse to believe that some of your problems aren’t answered there!
Quora
Quora is an interesting questions and answers site, its Swift community has nearly 2,000 followers, but the emphasis I’d like to put here is on the ability to learn more about something – like Swift in this case. Quora attracts a lot of foreign, and also beginner-type of users – so it’s a wonderful place to lounge at if you feel like helping others to learn programming, software, etc,.
Google Groups
It’s not overly packed to the walls with information and questions, but having a resource like this at your disposal can sometimes make or break an application. Google Groups is known for their intelligent answers and questionnaire, so be prepared to lay out your problems fully – before getting a solution from another member.
Meetups
But, if you’re anything like the pros are – you will opt for the choice of meeting real Swift developers in real-life. This can be done through the very successful website Meetups. You can literally find hundreds of groups that are meeting up on frequent basis – to discuss their craft, to share ideas and new things learned, and also to encourage others to continue with their practice.
Great Communities for Swift Developers
Right now, I wasn’t able to find that many more communities for you to join. I mean, the ones that we have in this list – have yet to mature themselves, and as I mentioned; I dislike the trend of having millions communities for the same purpose, it’s better to focus on growing one particular community, and then perhaps getting your branches for a new start from there.
Also, please leave a comment if you know of similar communities that have already started developing and maturing -I’d be more than happy with suggestions of sites (related to Swift) that have over 1,000 unique followers. It’s all about giving newcomers a piece of mind when it comes to finding learning resources.
