Swift should I switch?
- 2. @wolfgang_damm Wolfgang Damm CTO & Co-Founder [email protected] www.pocket-lifestyle.com
- 3. Swift Should I use it for production?
- 4. Current State • TIOBE Index of language popularity • Swift #27, increasing • Objective-C #4, declining • Github number of active repositories • Swift #18, growing • Objective-C #11, flat Data as of February 2015 http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html http://githut.info/
- 5. Swift 1.2 • Xcode 6.3 Beta • Faster builds & executables • Better compiler diagnostics • Stability • and changes to the language!
- 6. as! for failable casts
- 7. if let a = a, b = b, c = c {
- 10. Deferred initialisation of let constants
- 11. Set
- 12. So is it ready for prime time?
- 13. Duolingo Test Center • New App written in Swift • 3 month (1 dev, design/backend inplace) + Value types, custom operators + Stronger, static type system, with type inference + Generics especially for typesafe collections
- 14. Duolingo Test Center - Tooling: Xcode, crashes, very slow code completion, basically no debugger, unstable/ unreliable syntax highlighting (got better) - Swift language changes. Known from the beginning, in retrospect only little time spent on keeping source up to date - Incomprehensible compiler errors
- 15. Duolingo Test Center • Crash rate ~0.2% (crashes/downloads) mostly in Objective-C third party library • Swift eased process of building a solid architecture. Eliminating classes of bugs by design (e.g. Swift’s type system)
- 16. @brentsimmons ObjC: “I am laughing out loud” Swift: "LOL"
- 17. @brentsimmons • Harder on 2nd look • optionals, generics, and tuples, value vs reference • functional design patterns • strict type safety • issue interoperation with Objective-C • “Swift is happening.”
- 18. Random Thoughts from Developers • Common internal libraries, not rewriting just to be Swift • Sometimes interacting with Cocoa API’s harder than thought • Strict typing is a killer feature (finds bugs during compile time)
- 19. So is it ready for prime time?
- 20. Yes it is!
- 21. Our take aways • Future of iOS will be Swift • New code written in Swift • Rewriting only were it makes sense (lot of code changes, restructuring) • Know Swift AND Objective-C • Swift uses different patterns • Hard to follow good patterns when interfacing with Objective-C
- 22. Experience
- 23. Experience • Compiler bugs: crashes instead of error • Renew Certificate, otherwise it crashes submitted build • At first slower when writing code, but learning fast • Choice between Objective-C vs Swift patterns • Cocoapods support is still beta • cocoapods --pre installs 1.0.36(beta)
- 24. pod 'Alamofire', :git => 'https://github.com/Alamofire/ Alamofire.git', :branch => ‘xcode-6.3' pod 'SwiftyJSON', :git => 'https://github.com/ SwiftyJSON/SwiftyJSON.git', :branch => 'xcode6.3'
- 25. Favourite Swift Way enum Router: URLStringConvertible { static let baseURLString = "http://example.com" case Root case User(String) case Post(Int, Int, String) // MARK: URLStringConvertible var URLString: String { let path: String = { switch self { case .Root: return "/" case .User(let username): return "/users/(username)" case .Post(let year, let month, let title): let slug = title.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString(" ", withString: "-").lowercaseString return "/(year)/(month)/(slug)" } }() return Router.baseURLString + path } } Enum with associated value and computed property
- 26. Learn Swift • Read “The Swift Programming Language” by Apple • thatthinginswift.com • swiftdoc.org • learnswift.tips • Start coding in Swift! • github.com/raywenderlich/swift-style-guide
- 27. My experience learning Swift • Functional Programming is different • Force yourself to using good practices. Make use of strict types. Which is hard. • Harder to define public interface (no header). Standard access modifier is internal. Also makes testing harder.
- 28. Single most hardest thing in Swift?
- 29. ;
- 31. @wolfgang_damm Wolfgang Damm CTO & Co-Founder [email protected] www.pocket-lifestyle.com