Swift is the easiest way to get started developing on Apple's platforms: iOS, OS X, watchOS and tvOS. With the release of Swift 4.2 in 2018, the Swift language is packed with even more features and enhancements.

In this book, you'll learn the basics of Swift from getting started with playgrounds to simple operations to building your own types. Everything you'll learn is platform-neutral; you'll have a firm understanding of Swift by the end of this book, and you'll be ready to move on to whichever app platform you're interested in.

Who This Book Is For:

This book is for complete beginners to Swift 4.2. No prior programming experience is necessary!

Topics Covered in The Swift Apprentice

Playground basics: Learn about the coding environment where you can quickly and easily try out your code as you learn.
Numbers & strings: These are the basic kinds of data in any app — learn how to use them in Swift.
Making decisions: Your code doesn't always run straight through — learn how to use conditions and decide what to do.
Functions: Group your code together into reusable chunks to run and pass around.
Collection types: Discover the many ways Swift offers to store and organize data into collections.
Building your own types: Learn how to model elements in your app using classes, structures and enumerations.
Protocols & protocol-oriented programming: Define protocols to make your code more interface-based and compositional.
Error handling: Make your code more robust and flexible by signaling and handling error conditions gracefully.
Functional programming: Learn how to use Swift in a functional style and how this can make your code clearer and easier to reason about.

After reading this book and completing your Swift apprenticeship by working through the included exercises and challenges, you'll be ready to take on app development on the platform of your choice!