Swift.berlin, this time kindly hosted by Wooga, invited Crispy's own Christian Weyer to speak about whether Apple's new programming language Swift is ready for primetime use in corporate, production environments. In order to answer that question, Christian ported an existing OS X application to Swift and created a new iOS application from scratch. Watch the video to see his results and the conclusions he drew from these experiences. Video available at https://vimeo.com/113089291

2. @chrisweyer
@crispymtn

4. Custom software for
“ze german mittelstand”

7. 2+1

8. something old
(aka Objective-C port)

9. something new
(aka new iOS app)

10. something blue
(aka “my personal conclusions”)

11. BORROWED:
NEURON INSPECTOR

13. Objective-C
12.000 LOC

14. Unsuitable for CoreData

15. Lots of ASCII data input

16. 41601.05 -0.91 0
41601.10 0.91 0
41601.15 1.82 0
41601.20 1.82 0
41601.25 1.82 0
41601.30 0.91 0
41601.35 -0.91 0
41601.40 -1.82 0
41601.45 -3.64 0
41601.50 -4.55 0
41601.55 -7.27 0
41601.60 -11.82 0
41601.65 -16.36 0
41601.70 -20.91 0
41601.75 -23.64 0
41601.80 -26.36 0
41601.85 -25.45 0
41601.90 -22.73 0
41601.95 -19.09 0
41602.00 -15.45 0
41602.05 -13.64 0
41602.10 -10.00 0
41602.15 -5.45 0
41602.20 -0.91 0
41602.25 0.91 0
41602.30 0.91 0
41602.35 1.82 0
41602.40 4.55 0
41602.45 7.27 0
41602.50 8.18 0
41602.55 10.00 0
41602.60 13.64 0
41602.65 17.27 0
42988.30 -2.73 0
42988.35 -1.82 0
42988.40 -0.91 0

17. Massive use of parallelisation
(Grand Central Dispatch)

18. Not so many
standard UI widgets

21. NEW:
ENTERPRISE PHOTO APP

22. new project

23. Frontend for
a web service

24. only standard UI widgets

25. Uses camera

26. Uses CoreLocation

27. Uses AVFoundation based bar code
scanning (EAN, Aztec, QR, UPC…)

29. BLUE:
IS IT READY THEN?

30. Support

32. Stack Overflow

33. New questions with at least 1 answer
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
June August Oktober December (est.)
Time (2014)
Swift
Objective-C
Ember

34. Tutorials

35. Groups, Meetups

36. Learning curve,
language accessibility

37. class Channel: NSObject, ActivityScope {
let recording: Recording
var activities: Array<Activity> = [Activity]()
var spikes: Array<Spike> = [Spike]()
var voltages: Array<Double> = [Double]()
var times: Array<Double> = [Double]()

38. class KMeansClusterization : Activity {
var centerVectors: Array<Slice<Double>> = Array()

39. override func start() {
let qualityOfServiceClass = QOS_CLASS_USER_INTERACTIVE
let queue = dispatch_get_global_queue(qualityOfServiceClass, 0)
let recording: Recording = self.scope as Recording
dispatch_async(queue, {

40. - (void)addSpike:(id)aSpike
{
[self performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(willChangeValueForKey:)
withObject:@"spikes" waitUntilDone:NO];
[self addSpikeWithoutNotification:aSpike];
[self performSelectorOnMainThread:@selector(didChangeValueForKey:)
withObject:@"spikes" waitUntilDone:NO];
}

41. func addChannel(channel: Channel) {
// Make sure UI updates are done in the main queue
dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), {
self.willChangeValueForKey("channels")
self.channels.append(channel)
self.didChangeValueForKey("channels")
})
}

42. - (void)setRepresentedObject:(id)representedObject
{
[super setRepresentedObject:representedObject];
ClusterView* theView = (ClusterView*)[self view];
[theView setCluster: [self representedObject]];

43. override var representedObject: AnyObject? {
didSet {
}
}

44. Array(1...10).filter { (number) in number % 2 == 0 }

45. func generate() -> GeneratorOf<String> {
return GeneratorOf<String> {
return self.nextLine()
}
}

46. Libraries & Ecosystem

48. Alamofire.request(.GET, “http://berlin.swift/x”, parameters: ["foo": "bar"])
.response { (request, response, data, error) in
println(request)
println(response)
println(error)
}

49. Key Value Observing (KVO)
with Swift Closures
(https://github.com/rectalogic/KVOPlayground)

50. self.spikesObserver = KeyValueObserver(
source: channel,
keyPath: “spikes",
options: nil) { (kvo, change) in
let spikesFusionView = (self.view as…
spikesFusionView.channel = channel
spikesFusionView.populateSpikePathsCache()
spikesFusionView.needsDisplay = true
}

51. Cocoa Pods

53. New public GitHub repositories per month 0
2250
4500
6750
9000
April 2008
August 2008
December 2008
April 2009
August 2009
December 2009
April 2010
August 2010
December 2010
April 2011
August 2011
December 2011
April 2012
August 2012
December 2012
April 2013
August 2013
December 2013
April 2014
August 2014
Objective-C

54. New public GitHub repositories per month 0
2250
4500
6750
9000
June 2014
July 2014
August 2014
September 2014
October 2014
Objective-C
Swift

55. Apple lags a bit behind

56. Frameworks mostly don’t
embrace closures yet

57. Base types lack support for
certain functions

58. Xcode troubles

59. Execution Speed

60. var columns = (line as NSString).componentsSeparatedByString(“t")
// original is in ms
currentTime = columns[0].doubleValue / 1000.0
// original data is in micro volts;
voltage = columns[1].doubleValue / 1000000.0

61. String#componentsSeparatedByString
NSString#componentsSeparatedByString
split(String) { $0 == otherStr }
99.091
3.448
1.311
0 3.000 6.000 9.000 12.000 15.000
import worker thread total CPU time [ms]

62. 4000
3000
2000
1000
0
native String#componentsSeparatedByString
Objective-C
Swift

63. 4000
3000
2000
1000
0
NSString#componentsSeparatedByString
Objective-C
Swift

64. Massive discrepancy between
debug run and profile run

65. Overall slower
than Objective-C

66. So?

67. Support all green
Learning curve, language
accessibility
all green
Libraries & Ecosystem
much bridging, no Cocoapods,
Apple has work to do
Execution speed slower than Obj-C

68. Be hungry!
Be foolish!

69. Wait a year or so
for prime time

70. Questions?
Answers?