The fourth edition of our book Advanced Swift is available now.

If you bought a previous edition of the e-book, this is a free update for you.

Advanced Swift is the book for people who have read The Swift Programming Language and/or have been using Swift for some time and now want to dig deeper and really understand how everything works. It’s a book about Swift the language, not about iOS or macOS programming (though we do use Apple’s frameworks in some examples).

What changed

In addition to updating everything for Swift 5, we’ve added a new Enums chapter that is all about enums and how to use them effectively. Plus, we’ve completely rewritten the chapters on Structs and Classes, Generics, and Protocols. The chapters on Strings, Collection Protocols, and Error Handling also have substantial revisions and/or new content.

We moved the Collection Protocols chapter further back in the book, resulting in a smoother learning curve for readers.

Last but not least, Florian Kugler joined us as a co-author.

Video companion series

New this year is a bundle of 4.5 hours of companion videos that illustrate many techniques we present in the book in a more hands-on way and with longer examples. In five separate episodes, Chris and Florian demonstrate C Interoperability, String Parsing, Collection Protocols, Functions, and Encoding & Decoding Graphs. Using live-coding, pair programming, and a conversational style, the videos invite you to think through the concepts with us, as we apply them. If you’ve ever watched a Swift Talk episode, you’ll have a good idea of the style of the videos.

I think the videos are a great complement to the book because each medium has its own strengths. Text is great for conceptual discussions that require tons of detail. But nobody wants to read multiple pages of sample code where the concepts are applied to a practical example, and this is what the videos excel at.

The video bundle is a separate purchase. Since this is the third year of free, major updates to the e-book, we’d really appreciate your continued support by buying the video upgrade. Existing customers can purchase the videos at a discount by using this link.

How to buy

You can buy the e-book and videos at objc.io. The e-book download includes PDF, ePub, and Mobi (Kindle) files, all DRM-free. This version also includes the full text of the book as Xcode playgrounds (one playground per chapter).

If you prefer a printed book, you can order the paperback from Amazon (amazon.de, amazon.co.uk).