Swift IOS Tips – One of Best Development Language
Ever since its release in September 2014, Swift programming language has become the best development language in iOS.
IOS developers across the globe had started transitioning to Swift platform, a brand new language. Without doubt, Swift is the next big thing to hit the world of programming languages for app development.
Swift language has got several advanced features that make it much easier, safer, and faster to code. It is more predictable, giving the developers an edge over conventional Objective C Programming. To help you out in your venture, here are a few tips for Swift iOS developers:
Clean up Asynchronous Code in Swift
Since it is a relatively new territory, there is a lot left to experiment and understand. Even though there were completion blocks in Objective C, they came quite late and had weird syntaxes.
[self loginViaHTTPWithRequest: request completionBlockWithSuccess:^(LoginOperation* operation, id responseObject){
[self showMainScreen];
} failure:^(LoginOperation* operation, NSError* error){
[self showFailedLogin];
}];
With Swift, this becomes much easier and cleaner. The new closure syntax is what makes callbacks look clean.
loginViaHTTPReqyest(request){response in
if response.success {
showMainScreen()
} else {
showFailedLogin()
}
}
Arrange Constants Together
Utilize structs in Swift to organize your constants and arrange them together. Make a file purely for the constants, and put all your entries in there. Swift iOS also allows nesting of structures, making it even easier:
import Foundation
struct Constants {
struct FoursquareApi {
static let BaseUrl = "https://api.foursquare.com/v2/"
}
struct TwitterApi {
static let BaseUrl = "https://api.twitter.com/1.1/"
}
struct Configuration {
static let UseWorkaround = true
}
}
Be Careful with Optionals
An optional property is something that could either have a value or not have any value at all. That is why the term “optional”. It is possible to implicitly unwrap an optional by using an exclamation mark after the optional’s name. This is something you must do with extra caution.
Unwrapping an optional is a risky affair. As such, it is always better to use “if let” to first determine the value of an optional.
if let name = user.name {
print(name)
} else {
print("404 Name Not Found")
}
The use of optional needs much more knowledge. This is learnt with practice. It is a vast topic that needs extensive research for a newbie.
Make full use of Playgrounds
Swift gives you an all new playground to experiment with – the Playground. It is nothing but an interactive coding environment.
They help you test and validate ideas, share the concepts with each other, write little code snippets for unit tests, and learn Swift in an easy way. You could do all this without the hassle of creating a new project. Just choose Playground as an option on Xcode launch, and you are ready with your own Playground. A Playground can also be created from within Xcode.
Once you have the Playground ready, start coding. The results will be shown on the right side. It becomes so easy to prototype and demonstrate your thoughts with the Playground!
Use Protocol Extensions to Reduce Code Duplication
In Swift programming language, it is possible to add functionality to a protocol. Swift allows you to extend a single protocol as well, and even if it is part of a standard library.
Isn’t that great?!? Apply it to any class that implements the protocol, and you are ready to go. Use protocols to make code reusable, reduce duplicate code, and make your program compact and more meaningful.
So, these were a few tips for you to get started with Swift iOS app development space. Make your first program and learn as you code. As Swift keeps evolving, there will be much more to implement and learn about this amazing language!
