Tag Archives: Swift

Swift for Beans – var, let and Type Inference

I have always preferred explicitly typed languages, saving a couple of characters by simply declaring a variable as var or let can quickly end up in a game of “Guess who?” or “what” to be more precise.

Its straight forward enough with immediate assignments or when the expected type is clear.

var name = "Foo"  //clearly String
var street = customer.street //most likely String
var customer = Customer(name: "Foo", ...)

However when dealing with complex domain models or business functions with unclear return type the value of strong typing quickly becomes apparent.

var value = contract.amount  //Int/UInt/Float/Double/String/...?
var customer = contract.customer //String/domain model Customer/...?
var amountDue = billingService.calculate(...)  //Int/UInt/Float/Double/...?

Continue reading Swift for Beans – var, let and Type Inference

Swift for Beans – about null, nil and Optional.orElse(“?!”)

As you may have gathered, I have found an interest in Swift. I have always found it easier to pick up new languages by comparing it to the one I know best, Java.

Please note, this series is intended for experienced Java Developers. I will not go into details of Java or its API. Where sensible I will provide relevant links.

Tony Hoare, inventor of null (aka nil), famously proclaimed it to be his “…billion dollar mistake”. This should not be interpreted as null/nil being evil per se, denoting the absence/not-existence of a value is essential for data processing, but rather the absence of sensible language features to handle null/nil values.

To fully appreciate this you have to jump a couple of sentences further: “… More recent programming languages like Spec# have introduced declarations for non-null references. This is the solution, which I rejected in 1965.”

Unlike Java, Optional is an integral part of Swift language. In Swift variables may not be assigned nil (null), either they have to be initialized with a value or declared as an ? optional.

var nonNill: String = "Foo"  //may not be nil  
var optNil: String?  //optional may contain nil
var optNonNill: String? = "Bar" //Bar wrapped in an optional

Any attempt to assign a non-optional variable with a nil value results in a compilation error.
Continue reading Swift for Beans – about null, nil and Optional.orElse(“?!”)

Swift for Beans – Java Developers view on Swift

swift-ogA large open source community has grown around Swift, since Apple open sourced it along with a Linux Port back in Dezember 2015.

Certain parallels can be drawn between the evolution of Java and Swift. Java was first a portable platform independent client-side technology that slowly found its way to the server side. A similar pattern can now be seen when looking at the Swift ecosystem. Starting out as a client side technology for developing IOS and OS X applications. The release of Swift as an open source community driven language, along with the Linux port, have given rise to an array of frameworks, utility libraries and server projects.

Currently there are three major active web server projects:

For an overview of the Swift ecosystem visit IBM Swift Package Catalog.
Continue reading Swift for Beans – Java Developers view on Swift