A programming language is really only ever a means to an end, and you are not going to learn much from this book or any other resource if you don't have at least some idea of what that end is. Before diving into learning Swift, we have to understand what it really is and how it will help us achieve our goals. We also need to move forward with an effective learning technique and get a taste of what is to come. To do all this, we will go over the following topics: