Ask HN: Installing Swift on ubuntu for newbie

You can't.

To be frank. Even if it were possible I think it'd be above your head. You don't install a programming language.

Well, actually you do. Only work to work with one, is to install it (or have it installed already).

You might argue that that's a "compiler" that you install, but:

a) a programming language is a purely theoritical concept without a compiler

b) for some languages language+compiler is one and the same. Either they don't have a spec, or there's only one compiler. Swift is such a case.

On Ubuntu if I wanted to install Haskell, I would type:

    sudo apt-get install ghc

Generally speaking Swift is not available anywhere except Apple's proprietary platforms. [1]