Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) just released its new programming language, called Swift, last month, but it’s already becoming incredibly popular. The popularity of the language, based on two monthly pieces of research, the July Tiobe Index, where it finished 16th; and the most recent PyPL Popularity of Programming Language Index, where it finished in tenth; is increasing incredibly fast, and it seems that Swift has an amazing future ahead of it.
The massive initial popularity of Swift was first noted by Infoworld.com writer Paul Krill, who noted that “A search on language repositories in GitHub, meanwhile, finds 260 repositories pertaining to Swift.” Interest in the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) programming language is growing, but it may be some time before we actually see applications written entirely in the Cupertino code.
How popular is Apple’s Swift?
The Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) programming language is obviously not used in more programs than code that has been around for decades, and there hasn’t been a sudden uptick in college courses on the language. Given that it was just released to the public in June, most of those playing with Swift are probably less than well able to use it.
The measures used by both of the indices which showed the popularity of the language rely on internet searches. Thhe Tiobe Index looks at searches for specific languages across a number of sites while the PyPL Popularity of Programming Language simply uses searches for programming tutorials on Google as a proxy for the popularity of the language.
The Swift programming language is probably benefiting massively from the “halo effect” of the iPhone and other Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) products. The massive appeal of Apple hardware has led to a cult following of about everything the company does. A new programming language, though potential lucrative for some, was bound to attract more interest than was necessarily justified simply because it came out of Cupertino.
Apple drives innovation, or does it?
Programming for iOS has become one of the most potentially lucrative jobs in computer world in recent years, and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has promised that its programming language Swift will form the future base of many applications on the system. Programmers all over the world have been trying to come to terms with the language in order to make sure that they understand it once it comes to actually writing applications for iOS in the language.
According to programmers across the world Swift is a functional language but, despite its apparent initial popularity, it is not all that innovative. Swift apparently takes the best out of many different programming languages and puts them together.
Tiobe managing director Paul Jansen says that Swift “is also nothing new, but in contrast to Go[a Google programming language] it serves a purpose, i.e. to supersede the outdated Objective-C language. New applications for iPhone and iPad will all be written in Swift eventually. So Swift will probably stay in the top 20 for a long while and has the potential to become a top 10 player.”
