About Swift
You can check which version of Swift you are using by running the following command in the Terminal:
swift --version
About Swift
Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple Inc. and the open-source
community, first released in 2014.
Swift was developed as a replacement for Apple's earlier programming language Objective-C, as Objective-C.
Swift defines away large classes of common programming errors by adopting modern programming patterns:
- Variables are always initialized before use.
- Array indices are checked for out-of-bounds errors.
- Integers are checked for overflow.
- Optionals ensure that nil values are handled explicitly.
- Memory is managed automatically.
- Error handling allows controlled recovery from unexpected failures.
Since Apple develops and maintains the Swift language, it is optimized for Apple hardware.
Therefore an iOS app developed in Swift may perform better than a similar app developed in another language.
Apple also updates Swift with new features on a regular basis. This allows developers programming in Swift to take
advantage
of the latest advances in Macs, iPhones, iPads, and other Apple products.
Releases
Swift 5.1 was officially released in September 2019. Swift 5.1 builds on the previous version of Swift 5 by
extending the stable features
of the language to compile-time with the introduction of module stability.
The introduction of module stability makes it possible to create and share binary frameworks that will work with
future releases of Swift.
- Swift 5.2 - March 24, 2020
- Swift 5.3 - September 16, 2020
- Swift 5.4 - April 26, 2021