An interview with Van Simmons on the evolution of mobile apps, iOS, Swift, and our upcoming iOS developer class

iOS and Swift continue to rapidly evolve. Van Simmons previews our upcoming iOS mobile development class and discusses how the changing nature of Swift is causing us to evolve our iOS class. Van also talks about the rapid emergence of idiomatic conventions for developing apps in Swift, his experience building multiple major iOS apps in Swift, and the potential for Swift as a language for server-side development.

“DON’T FIGHT THE PLATFORM”

0:30 Introduction 
1:10 Intro to Van Simmons 
4:00 Transitions/evolution of mobile app development 
7:10 Continuing evolution of Swift and Apple’s “willingness to break your code” 
9:00 Teaching iOS at Harvard last 2 years 
10:25 How the NSS class will be different this time around 
11:30 Insights from working on an app with 20 million active users 
16:50 “the DNA of Apple is that everything is a graphical tool, even programming” 
17:45 “Don’t Fight the Platform” - being fluent and idiomatic with the platform 
19:50 “being attuned to the latest thinking in the tool chain” 
21:50 Swift is now an option for Linux server-side programming 
24:00 Why Not (& Why) Swift on the server 
28:50 Next iOS Class Preview