With the recent release of a new beta of Xcode, Apple has also dropped the first release of Swift 4.1, adding some new tools and ehanncementas fro developers.

It seems Google is putting the building blocks together for their next operating system. Fuchsia looks like a potential candidate for replacing both Android and Chrome OS eventually - kind of like how Microsoft envisaged Windows 10 as a one-size-fits-all platform. And one of the pieces that will determine how successful Fuchsia becomes is developer support. When Chris Lattner left Apple to join Google he brought with him the expertise he used to develop the Swift programming language. And now, Swift is being used to develop software on Fuchsia.

Last week, Apple updated their Swift programming language to version 4. Initially released during WWDC in 2014, Swift replaced the Objective C language developers were working with to create iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS applications. There's a compatibility mode that supports Swift 3 code and you can combine new and old code as the previous version and the new can peacefully coexist.

Online is where it's at when it comes to learning resources for programming, especially for languages used primarily for web. Sometimes however, you just want a solid, consistent experience you can read without necessarily needing an IDE open in front of you and that's where eBooks reign supreme. Fortunately, O'Reilly has you covered with 36 free coding titles.

Hands up if you’ve heard of Swift Playgrounds? No, it’s not some new start-up providing quick playdates for bedraggled parents, although that might be interesting. Swift Playgrounds is the new programming tool, introduced by Apple in June at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference, based on the Swift programming language the company introduced a few years ago. What makes Swift Playgrounds interesting is that it provides a first-party computer programming platform that can be run entirely on an iPad, no computer required. It is also a milestone for Apple as it adapts to a world where personal computers are on a decline.

Apple has released Xcode 7.3 Beta 3 and has made improvements to its Swift testing environment, Playgrounds. Developers can now click, drag and interact with user interfaces and see how their code will perform directly in the testing environment. Here are the details.

Apple made Swift, it's programming language for iOS, OS X and watchOS, open source last week. Clearly IBM is excited because it has responded swiftly (sorry, couldn't resist) by releasing the Swift Sandbox tool which lets you write and execute Swift code in a Linux server environment. Here are the details.

Less than 24 hours after Apple announced its Swift programming language, coder Nate Murray had put together a version of Flappy Bird using it. This is an impressive achievement. But it does not mean, as my Kotaku colleagues suggest, that Flappy Bird is the new "Hello World".