Developers looking to write their way out of the Apple ecosystem now have a language for breaking away: Swift. With the help of IBM’s web framework Kitura, Swift gives those struggling with Node.js or schooled in client-side iOS development a new avenue for building a versatile backend for an application.

• Learn the basics of Swift language and programming
• Get comfortable with server-side Swift and set up a project using Kitura
• Create routes for the API and connect them to a data model
• Explore the environment and tools developed to support Swift and Kitura
• Use the Swift package manager to download and manage libraries

Tim Nugent, PhD, is a mobile app and game designer and developer who has co-authored five O’Reilly titles, including Learning Cocoa with Objective-C, Learning Swift, and The Kerbal Players Guide. He blogs at Lonely.Coffee.