Cocoa Programming for OS X: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Introducing the Swift Language

Programming in Cocoa was initially done in a language called Objective-C. Objective-C is an extension of the C programming language that adds constructs for object-oriented programming. In that respect it bears a superficial resemblance to C++, but the two are extremely different. Unlike C++, Objective-C is weakly typed and extremely powerful. With power comes responsibility: Objective-C also allows programmers to make ridiculous errors.

Over the past several years, Apple’s engineers have gone to heroic lengths to make Objective-C faster and add more modern features, but in order to move forward, a new language was needed, free of the limitations of the past. Swift, developed by a small team led by ...