NIX Solutions’s iOS Developers at the CocoaConf Conference in Washington DC

While NIX Solutions is among the top information technology (IT) service providers, we never stop learning. In line with our promise to provide your top-notch, updated services, our iOS developers attended the CocoaConf Conference in Washington DC, in September of 2016.

Our developers were able to share their knowledge while also learning a lot about newly developed coding languages and various techniques—specifically from Jonathan Guthrie’s presentation entitled, “Creating a Server-Side Application with your Favorite Language: Swift!”

The topic proved very interesting, useful, and informative for all of our iOS Developers that is why we would like to share what we have learned with you. Like our clients, we want you to have a clearer understanding of what we do for you, and how we do it. Here is our theoretical discussion on Swift.

The Benefits of Using Swift

Using a new language—one that is not as established as JavaScript—has proven difficult for developers. Not because of the technicalities, but because of performance and trust. While new languages have more benefits, their lackluster performance and results render them unusable.

Our iOS developers were already using a language that allowed them to make flawless applications, so it took quite a lot to convince them that Swift was better—and yet, they were convinced and are currently using the Perfect Framework and Swift language. Swift allows JS developers to create iOS applications that perform immaculately. More than that, the language creates applications that actually outperform applications created using JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby, among others.

Apart from improved performance, Swift has static strict typification. This means that the language does not enact default transformations—features and variables are determined at the stage of compilation.

Another benefit is that the Perfect framework requires fewer resources, as compared to other coding languages. Instead of manual memory management, Swift uses automatic reference counting, ensuring that it eats up less RAM or memory space, without the developer needing to worry about it. Additionally, the coding language of Swift is easier to understand, as compared to its peers and predecessors—meaning little code and less error.

If our server will “fit in” the restrictions of RAM we can have about 18 balanced exemplars. This is a pleasant thing for small startups and developers who, for whatever reason, are no longer satisfied with free plans.

Last, with the perfect framework, isomorphic programming is a possibility. This means that developers can start using a tested base code for multiple applications, reducing bugs, speeding up application development, and lessening expenses. Using a base code is neither a possibility nor a practice because it results in complicated problems and a lot of unforeseen issues.

Swift has More Options

Unlike other languages, Swift offers multiple frameworks aside from Perfect, such as Zewo, Vapor, and Kitura. As can be expected, each of these frameworks has their pros and cons, so it is up to the developers to pick which framework is best for their purposes. In Nix Solutions, we use the Perfect framework unless instructed otherwise. We find that this framework is the one that works best for us.

In Jonathan’s presentation, he showed us that while developers are competing against each other; they are also the source of further development. The Swift code continues to improve and progress because of the continued usage of developers and certain major players (e.g. Apple). It has a Serve APIs core team that ensures optimum performance through (1) basic work with networks; (2) security and encryption; and (3) HTTP and WebSocket.

The existence core and HTTP realization standards for this language help ordinary swift developers by lowering the learning curve and introducing easy-to-replace or combine solutions.

The Perfect Assistant

The Perfect team developed an easy-to-use and–understand assistant that allows developers to easily manage their projects, check the functionality of their products under OS X and Linux, add makedepend to the project, and create better applications for Amazon S3 and Google Cloud.

The assistant is rather helpful because it allows changes to be done in a few clicks—even for beginners who are facing difficult problems. Additional graphical interfaces will keep server-side developers interested in using the assistant, while benefiting and attracting newcomers, as well.

Conclusion

While the Swift language is new to the field, it continues and will be keeping continuing to grow because of certain factors. Apart from the reduced RAM or memory usage mentioned earlier, because the Swift community works together and influences each other, there are numerous guidelines and modules, and the development of tools is ongoing. Moreover, companies like Apple and IBM are supporting both the language and the main framework developers to make the language even better and increase its usability.

While the language is not perfect—Linux users need to use libraries written for C for some frameworks and the language lack backward compatibility—overall, it is a new language that serves its purpose and does it well. Its continued development encourages application developers to continue using it and making it a staple in IT companies, worldwide.