Playing with swift in IBM Swift Sandbox

Update: December 2017

Swift sandbox is going to be deprecated. I’m testing some new tools and sharing my experience in the new IBM swift tools post.

Update: September 2017

Many things were changed in the Sandbox since this post was originally created.

Some improvements in IBM Swift Sandbox:

Added possibility to choose the Swift version!

Swift Sandbox settings

  • “Users can now try out certain packages in the Sandbox, through the IBM Swift Package Catalog.”
  • Better autocomplete and compilation error messages.
  • The mobile experience is significantly better. Partially due to multiple bug fixes, partially due to the phone upgrade.

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Original post

Some time ago I was looking for a good Swift web interface.

Back then I discovered few similar websites but none of them touched my heart. Today I checked again and discovered a nice project from IBM – IBM Swift Sandbox It has all features that I was looking for:

  • responsive design — so I can use it on my phone,
  • code highlighter — to please my eyes,
  • it’s fast!
  • and, as a bonus, it even has an auto-completion feature.

Sometimes it is not very convenient on 4 inch iPhone screen, but it is still better than other alternatives.

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IBM Swift Sandbox on iPhone IBM Swift Sandbox on iPhone Some other websites I used for comparison:


http://iswift.org/playground

Pros:

  • Relatively responsive (see “Cons”).
  • The source code can be easily shared through a link.

Cons:

  • Slow to compile,
  • On smaller screen requires scrolling a lot.

http://swiftstub.com/

Pros:

  • Can import swift playgrounds.
  • Gives the possibility to collaborate with other people (I’m not sure how useful is this feature).

Cons:

  • Not responsive at all.
  • Last time I opened it I was unable to get any output from it.