
Can I get a good job as an iOS developer after learning just Swift - uofmihnea
Hello,<p>I was wondering what people&#x27;s thoughts were around employability of knowing Swift (but not Objective-C)?<p>Some context: I had studied CS Eng. in undergrad (and graduated at the top of my class) from a top program that focused on C++. I and know C++ forward &amp; backward, but I dipped into the business side of things immediately after undergrad. Now, four years later, I&#x27;d like to get back into software development and my area of interest is iOS. I&#x27;ve been focused on learning Swift through a Stanford iTunes U course which is really good, but I&#x27;m not sure how it would be perceived if I don&#x27;t know Objective-C.<p>I&#x27;m in the SF Bay Area and looking to stick around here in case that&#x27;s relevant to the answer set.<p>Thank you!
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aqadan
I've been an iOS guy for 6 years now; recently, I've had to pick up swift to
adapt with the market and the many readily available resources being in swift.
I say this because the advice I'll give you is based on what I've seen in the
Bay Area, larger companies, and even from a personal learning experience. If
you can build an app from scratch in Swift and publish it to the App Store,
then you're golden in the job market. It's always the apps you have in the App
Store that will bring out your resume when companies look to bring you in for
interviews. With that being said, here are some pieces of advice I have for
Swift vs. Objective-C: \- Learn Swift through the iTunes U Standford course
and master it \- Stay upto date with the NSHipster blog for many of the ins
and outs of Swift, Obj-C, and the iOS framework \- Be sure to learn some of
the Objective-C concepts that aren't that common in Swift (contact me for more
details) \- Research the common iOS interview questions as many of them still
pertain to Objective-C \- Understand your basic CS theory: Data Structures,
Algorithms & their complexities, OOP, System programming \- Integrate
libraries that are written in Objective-C into one of your Swift apps and be
sure to know how to incorporate it correctly

Currently, I'm working with a team of iOS engineers to build out our SDK for
our service. One of the issues we've come up with over the past year was Swift
vs. Objective-C. We made the decision to continue development and refactoring
in Swift while maintaining our well written Objective-C code base. So, anyone
coming on to our team would need Swift experience and be able to understand
some details in Objective-C.

If you have any questions about what I mentioned, you can email me:
aqadan@gmail.com

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notduncansmith
Having learned Swift, followed later by Objective-C, I would say that Swift's
biggest advantage (for me) was giving me a familiar-feeling language while
working out the idiosyncrasies of the iOS API's, Xcode, and all the other
things that come with learning iOS development.

Once you know Swift well, and have written at least one app, you'll probably
know a bit of Objective-C anyways. As other commenters have mentioned, there
are lots of libraries that haven't been ported yet, lots of example code on
Stack Overflow, etc. The Swift community is still evolving, so you're going to
encounter some Obj-C as you work more in iOS-land. From there, learning Obj-C
is pretty much limited to the language itself, which is not a huge hurdle (I
picked up the rest of what I needed to be productive in a matter of days).

TL;DR Learning Swift makes it easier to learn iOS - once you know Swift + iOS,
it's easy to pick up Objective-C.

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thelogos
I'm job-hunting currently and most companies demand you know Objective-C with
Swift as the icing. Many don't even care about Swift at all.

Many frameworks are written in Objective-C and have not been ported over.

I think you'll find it very frustrating if you only know Swift because there's
just so much Objective-C out there and they're by no mean deprecated.

You should learn the basics of Objective-C at the very least.

Edit:One thing I forgot to mention, knowing just Swift means you have next to
no experience with iOS comparatively speaking since Swift hasn't been around
that long. There are companies that expect us to know pre-ARC Objective-C just
to let you know where the bars are in this game.

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drallison
Your post makes no sense. On the one hand, you claim to "know C++ forward &
backward" and on the other, you claim you "don't know Objective-C". You seem
to think you cannot teach yourself Objective-C quickly and easily. That does
not portent well for your ability to solve problems and learning quickly.

How about taking an afternoon (or however long it takes you) to learn
Objective-C. After all,it is just another C variant and closely related to C
and C++, which you already know.

Whether you are employable as a developer depends on your programming skills
which are separate and distinct from the particular language(s) you "know".

~~~
uofmihnea
Hey thanks for the message. I think there's a distinction between knowing
objective-c (or any language) and having significant experience where you can
program effectively in that language. I should've been more precise with my
wording, but I had meant the latter.

I'm sure I can teach myself objective-c quickly, but if I were to code an app
I'd probably prefer to do this in Swift.

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coryl
This is an assumption, but if you go to work for a big tech company (Fb,
Twitter, or any of the like), the code base is most likely to still be in
Objective-C. So for practicality, it would be wise to catch up with Obj-C.

~~~
uofmihnea
Sure but do you think it's a barrier to entry or is it acceptable to learn on
the job?

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akhilcacharya
Saying "no" is kind of difficult here, but most codebases at large companies
are going to require some Obj. C familiarity at minimum, and proficiency on
average.

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chrisbrandow
Yes. Of course. But you you will be more valuable to potential employers if
you learn objective C.

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MichaelCrawford
There are lots of Swift jobs.

[http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/united-
states/californ...](http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/united-
states/california/san-francisco/san-francisco/)

However, no one will hire you unless you have at least one app in the app
store. There's no specific requirement for what that app actually does. As far
as I can tell, there's not even a specific requirement that the app be any
good.

This has to do with that, at one time, it was quite difficult to get Apple to
accept new apps. Now Apple accepts nearly all comers, yet hiring managers
still have the idea that applicants are only qualified if they have a shipping
app.

What that means is that your knowledge of C++ and Swift and your CSE degree
won't help much; what you need is an app in the app store.

~~~
zerr
> However, no one will hire you unless you have at least one app in the app
> store.

I guess this encourages publishing random garbage apps and polluting the app
store. You can be a great engineer but not a businessman. Not everybody comes
up with a polished product ready for publishing.

Btw, all your links (including internal) redirect to:
[http://www.warplife.com/ethics/reputation.html](http://www.warplife.com/ethics/reputation.html)

~~~
MichaelCrawford
mod_rewrite FTW.

I've been contemplating doing that for years.

What led me to choose last night to set up the redirect, was a reply to my
complaint that having grey hair, as well as being openly public about my
mental illness, has made it impossible to find paying work.

Some joker replied that if I wanted to find paying work, I wouldn't link to my
essays about my schizoaffective disorder.

I regard his suggestion as the problem, not the solution.

I won't leave that redirect there forever. Eventually I'll stop being so
pissed off.

~~~
zerr
On the other hand, it might be a good filter - you really don't want to work
with those kind of people who hesitate to offer you a job because of your
disorder, neglecting your background and experience.

