Summary of WORLD’S FIRST DEVELOPMENT BOARD BASED ON THE SWIFT PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
The SwiftIO board by MadMachine runs Swift on bare metal, enabling electronics development with a modern language familiar to iOS developers. It is compact, Arduino-compatible for sensors, lights, and motors, and is paired with the MadMachine IDE that provides a full Swift compiler and framework on the microcontroller to simplify development.
Parts used in the SwiftIO board:
- SwiftIO development board
- Microcontroller with Swift runtime
- MadMachine IDE (software)
- Arduino-compatible sensors
- Arduino-compatible lights
- Arduino-compatible motors
One growing trend across the embedded systems development world is the development of boards, Microcontrollers, and general development platforms,
that aim to be more inclusive, with respect to supporting other programming languages asides the traditional C/C++ that are synonymous with embedded development. From boards like the Espruino which supports Javascripts out of the box, these boards reduce the embedded system barrier of entry in a way that allows developers from other backgrounds like Software to quickly get up and running on hardware projects. With a lot of ground a language still to cover, a new board, developed by the folks at MadMachine, is taking things further with support for Swift; the programming language popular among iOS developers.
The new board called; the SwiftIO board, is a compact electronics development board that runs Swift on the bare metal, giving you a system that can be used for the development of all kinds of electronics. The design of the board took a cue from the ease and fun associated with the Arduino and it thus supports a range of sensors, lights, and motors that are plug-and-play compatible with Arduino boards.
The new development board is accompanied by the MadMachine IDE which offers a full Swift compiler and framework environment that runs on the microcontroller making the development process easy. Despite being popular only among iOS developers, Swift is regarded as a modern general-purpose programming language that incorporates modern approaches to ensure safety, performance and support the implementation of a well-built software design patterns.
Read more: WORLD’S FIRST DEVELOPMENT BOARD BASED ON THE SWIFT PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
- What programming language does the SwiftIO board support?
The SwiftIO board supports the Swift programming language running on the bare metal. - Does the SwiftIO board work with Arduino-compatible components?
Yes, the board supports a range of sensors, lights, and motors that are plug-and-play compatible with Arduino boards. - What development environment is available for the SwiftIO board?
The MadMachine IDE accompanies the board and offers a full Swift compiler and framework environment for the microcontroller. - Can iOS developers use their Swift knowledge for hardware projects with this board?
Yes, the board enables iOS developers to use Swift for embedded electronics development. - Is Swift considered suitable for general-purpose embedded development on this board?
The article states Swift is a modern general-purpose language that supports safety, performance, and good software design patterns, making it suitable for this use. - Does the SwiftIO board run an operating system to support Swift?
The article indicates Swift runs on the bare metal of the microcontroller, not on a separate operating system.
