Swift is a language that is most commonly used to write apps for Apple client devices, such as iPhones. Since being released in 2014, Swift has become one of the most popular languages due to its high performance and developer ergonomics. In 2015, Swift was open sourced, creating the opportunity for Swift to be used outside of the Apple ecosystem.

If you write an iPhone app today, your frontend is in Swift and your backend is probably in NodeJS, Java, or Ruby. Engineers are working to port Swift to the server so that the Swift developer experience is isomorphic: the same language on the backend and the frontend.

Chris Bailey is an engineer at IBM working on Kitura, a Swift web framework. In this episode, we discuss the history of Swift, why it is so appealing to developers, and why Swift could become a server side language with as much popularity as Java.

Software Engineering Daily is having our third Meetup, Wednesday May 3rd at Galvanize in San Francisco. The theme of this Meetup is Fraud and Risk in Software. We will have great food, engaging speakers, and a friendly, intellectual atmosphere. To find out more, go to softwareengineeringdaily.com/meetup.

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