swift.pngPopular freelancing website Upwork today released its quarterly study ranking the fastest-growing skills employers are looking for, and Apple's Swift programming language scored the number two spot, meaning it's one of the most sought after skills for freelance developers.

Swift, along with the other top 10 skills that made the list in the fourth quarter of 2016, experienced more than 200 percent year-over-year growth. Other skills that have become more essential on Upwork alongside Swift include natural language processing, Tableau, Amazon Marketplace Web Services, and Stripe.

Introduced in 2014, Swift is Apple's programming language, developed in part by Chris Lattner who made headlines recently when he left Apple for Tesla. Designed to be concise yet expressive, Swift replaces Objective-C and is being increasingly adopted by developers.

Swift Playgrounds
Swift is meant to be simple to learn, something Apple highlights with Swift Playgrounds, an app that teaches children to code using the Swift language. Apple has been updating and refining Swift since its 2014 debut, and is set to unveil Swift 3.1 in the spring of 2017.

Upwork's Skills Index measures year-over-year growth rates based on freelancer billings through the Upwork site.

Tag: Swift

Top Rated Comments

2457282 Avatar
104 months ago
There are much more and much easier ways to learn Android programming than Swift. Sadly.
Wait, I don't believe Swift works for Android. Did I miss a joke?
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
khaan Avatar
104 months ago
It's a ****** language with so many bugs underneath the compiler level. Garbage collections are completely broken in certain scenario that has been reported years ago, which still havent fixed yet. Not to mention the terrible performance with Swift compare to Objective C. There is a reason why even Apple themselves are not bothering adapting to it internally.

The syntax itself is even more bizarre and crazy to read. The entire idea of unwrap and wrap is like the a beginner's protection against null pointer. They tried so hard to reinvent a language with all other language combine, it just not working out. Essentially a DoA project.

Whoever think this language is on demand, you must be on some special kind of kool-aid. Most company's CTO or engineering director have no clue or any idea on what to use, they just follow the news and hype train to decide.
This is some quality ********. First of all Swift does not have a garbage collector, it uses ARC(automatic reference counting). If you don't understand what a retain cycle is, you will have memory leaks.

Optional, what you call wrap/unwrapping is not an idea that Swift came up with, a lot of functional languages like Haskell, Scala have it. It's not a beginner's protection, it's a way to guarantee that you never touch dangling pointers, the best part is the compiler does the heavy lifting and checks it for you. Once you grok the idea that you can map over optionals, they can even save you time and lines of code.

I agree that it has somewhat of a learning curve compared to objective-c, but it's nowhere near rust. And who told you that it has worse performance than objective-c?

I seriously believe that Swift will become the go-to language in a couple of years, both in the server-side space and in the mobile space.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DMH0630 Avatar
104 months ago
It's a ****** language with so many bugs underneath the compiler level. Garbage collections are completely broken in certain scenario that has been reported years ago, which still havent fixed yet. Not to mention the terrible performance with Swift compare to Objective C. There is a reason why even Apple themselves are not bothering adapting to it internally.

The syntax itself is even more bizarre and crazy to read. The entire idea of unwrap and wrap is like the a beginner's protection against null pointer. They tried so hard to reinvent a language with all other language combine, it just not working out. Essentially a DoA project.

Whoever think this language is on demand, you must be on some special kind of kool-aid. Most company's CTO or engineering director have no clue or any idea on what to use, they just follow the news and hype train to decide.
Garbage collection? Swift and Objective-C both use reference counting.

Performance in apps is no longer greatly different between Swift and Objective-C since probably Swift 2.2.

The entire syntax is incredibly similar to Objective-C, especially semantically.

You do realize that Apple has nearly 20 years of code written in Objective-C right? No company would rewrite their entire codebase just because they have a new language, they'll phase it out with probably new development being done in Swift.

Seeing as null pointers and null pointer exceptions are one of the biggest causes for bugs I think safety is good, also Java has also adopted it the Optional type in Java 8.

Apparently someone is paying for people that do know Swift so regardless of it being hype or anything else the money is flowing and also its the language supported by Apple for all of its platforms so I doubt it'll die although it might become a niche used only for Apples platforms (thats the case of Objective-C anyway) and IBM is also spending money on Swift for the server.

So either IBM, Apple and everyone else spending money on it are stupid and you're incredibly smart or the other way around, the future will tell which is which.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
khaan Avatar
104 months ago
ARC is a form of garbage collection, just because it wrap the invisible autoreleasepool doesn't mean its really automatic.

Optional is nothing but a beginner protection. It doesn't save code, it add extra codes to save awful engineers from making corporate / enterprise software into oblivion.
ARC is not garbage collection.

ARC is compiler being smart and adding the retain/release calls to correct places automatically during compile time. The downside is every retain/release has some overhead.

A garbage collector sweeps the object graph in regular intervals during program execution, detects objects to release, and cycles. The downside is for large object graphs, this is a quite expensive operation and sometimes results in the application being frozen while the collector is running.

Optionals are an abstraction that makes life easier. You may see it as a beginner feature for awful engineers. But to be honest you sound like a beginner too.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
shansoft Avatar
104 months ago
It's a ****** language with so many bugs underneath the compiler level. Garbage collections are completely broken in certain scenario that has been reported years ago, which still havent fixed yet. Not to mention the terrible performance with Swift compare to Objective C. There is a reason why even Apple themselves are not bothering adapting to it internally.

The syntax itself is even more bizarre and crazy to read. The entire idea of unwrap and wrap is like the a beginner's protection against null pointer. They tried so hard to reinvent a language with all other language combine, it just not working out. Essentially a DoA project.

Whoever think this language is on demand, you must be on some special kind of kool-aid. Most company's CTO or engineering director have no clue or any idea on what to use, they just follow the news and hype train to decide.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
^VE1N Avatar
104 months ago
Any good books for beginners on swift that have a background in C++ and C#?
Check this one - https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/ios-10-programming/9781491970065/
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

carplay next gen hero

RIP, CarPlay 2?

Sunday December 29, 2024 7:32 am PST by
Apple's website continues to state that the first vehicle models with next-generation CarPlay will "arrive in 2024." With less than three days remaining in the year, however, that timeframe is looking more and more unlikely. It would not be entirely Apple's fault if the stated 2024 target is missed, given that it is ultimately up to automakers to roll out the software in vehicles, but it is...
apple vision pro

Apple Vision Pro May Now Be Out of Production

Tuesday December 31, 2024 2:00 pm PST by
Apple's first-generation Vision Pro headset may have now ceased production, following reports of reduced demand and production cuts earlier in the year. In October, The Information's Wayne Ma reported that Apple had abruptly reduced production of the Vision Pro headset ahead of potential plans to stop making the current version of the device completely by the end of 2024. With the year now...
aapl logo banner

Apple Broke a 13-Year Hardware Streak in 2024

Wednesday January 1, 2025 1:00 am PST by
For over a decade, Apple has consistently announced all-new hardware product lines, from the iPad in 2010 to the Vision Pro in 2023. But for the first time in 14 years, Apple failed to announce any major new hardware products in 2024, focusing solely on updates and refinements to its existing product lines. While Apple unveiled a large number of significant hardware refreshes in 2024, such...
apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

Apple Plans to Expand iPhone Driver's Licenses to These 7 U.S. States

Thursday January 2, 2025 6:45 am PST by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, providing a convenient and contactless way to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. Below, we outline which U.S. states and territories offer the feature, and additional states that have committed to rolling it out in...
iPhone SE 4 Thumb 1

'iPhone SE 4' Rumored to Be Named 'iPhone 16E'

Wednesday January 1, 2025 8:31 am PST by
Apple is expected to release a fourth-generation iPhone SE in March, but it has been rumored that the device will have a different name. The device succeeding the third-generation iPhone SE will be named the iPhone 16E, according to a December 13 post from Fixed Focus Digital, an account with over two million followers on Chinese social media platform Weibo. On December 31, another leaker...
Apple TV Plus Black Banner

Apple TV+ Announces Free Weekend [Updated]

Monday December 30, 2024 6:21 am PST by
Apple TV+ is set to be available to stream for free from Friday, January 3 to Sunday, January 5, providing its full catalog with no subscription fee. Following a series of teasers, Apple confirmed the free weekend on social media, building anticipation for new releases early in 2025 such as the second season of "Severance." Simply open the Apple TV app to watch for free. Apple has never...
airpods pro 2 gradient

AirPods Pro 3 Expected Next Year: Here's What We Know

Monday December 23, 2024 4:18 am PST by
Despite being released over two years ago, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 continue to dominate the wireless earbud market. However, with the AirPods Pro 3 expected to launch sometime in 2025, anyone thinking of buying Apple's premium earbuds may be wondering if the next generation is worth holding out for. Apart from their audio and noise-canceling performance, which are generally regarded as...