From iOS- to Vapor Developer (VaporLondon)

Diving into server-side Swift can seem straightforward at first if one knows the programming language, but it might be harder than you think since it involves developing on a new platform. I will walk you through my journey coming from iOS into Vapor, what challenges I faced, and which strengths I had coming from the iOS platform. I will talk about how these challenges can be overcome and I will share my experiences after working with Vapor in production for 6 months.

Talk given at a VaporLondon event (https://www.meetup.com/VaporLondon/events/243769172/) on the 30th of October 2017.

Transcript

1. From iOS- to Vapor developer
5. Swi$ ❤ Linux
7. Kitura Perfect Vapor Zewo
8. Pros • Swi$
9. Pros • Swi% • Fast
10. Pros • Swi% • Fast • Code share
11. Pros • Swi% • Fast • Code share • More fullstack developers
12. Pros • Swi% • Fast • Code share • More fullstack developers • Xcode
13. Pros • Swi% • Fast • Code share • More fullstack developers • Xcode • Big community
14. Cons • New language
15. Cons • New language • New package manager
16. Cons • New language • New package manager • New framework
17. Cons • New language • New package manager • New framework • Xcode
18. Cons • New language • New package manager • New framework • Xcode • Hos$ng
19. Cons • New language • New package manager • New framework • Xcode • Hos6ng • Lack of libraries
20. Programming languages in the making • JavaScript (1995): 22 years • Java (1996): 21 years • Ruby (1996): 21 years • Swi$ (2014): 3 years
21. Web frameworks in the making 1 • Spring MVC (2002): 15 years • Ruby on Rails (2004): 13 years • NodeJS (2009): 8 years • Kitura/Perfect/Vapor (2016): 1 year 1 Since their version 1.0 release.
22. The future is bright for server-side Swi/
24. Kitura Perfect Vapor
25. Kitura Perfect Vapor
26. Kitura Perfect Vapor
28. Hi, my name is Steffen D. Sommer !
33. Steffen iOS
34. Steffen ❤ iOS Swi*
35. Swi$ as a language, not iOS as a pla/orm
38. iOS != Vapor
39. iOS != Vapor Number of users
40. iOS - 1
41. Vapor - Lots of users
42. iOS != Vapor Performance
43. iOS - Not an issue
44. Vapor - Users do not want to wait for requests to return
45. Vapor - Users do not want to wait for requests to return - More performance = more money
46. iOS != Vapor Crash handling
47. iOS - "We'll fix it in the next app update"
48. Vapor - Fix it now
49. iOS != Vapor Updates
50. iOS - 2 week release cycles
51. Vapor - Whenever we want
52. iOS != Vapor Pla$orms
53. iOS - One pla(orm to rule them all
54. Vapor - macOS + Linux
55. iOS != Vapor Foundation
56. iOS - !
57. Vapor - !
58. iOS != Vapor Breaking changes in the API
59. iOS - Good to go
60. Vapor - Handle different versions depending on the client
61. iOS != Vapor The Xcode project file
62. iOS - Merge madness
63. Vapor - .. what file?
64. iOS != Vapor Third party frameworks
65. iOS - Which one to pick?
66. Vapor - Roll out your own
67. iOS != Vapor User Interfaces
68. iOS - Storyboards and auto layout
69. Vapor - HTML, CSS and JavaScript
70. iOS != Vapor Persistence
71. iOS - Used to some extent
72. Vapor - Used heavily
73. iOS != Vapor Security
74. iOS - Mostly handled by the OS
75. Vapor - Needs to be a first class ci/zen in your project
76. iOS != Vapor Consumers
77. iOS - None
78. Vapor - Frontend
79. iOS != Vapor Releasing
80. iOS - iTunes Connect
81. Vapor - Deploying
82. Tips to overcome these challenges
83. Tip #1 Start repor)ng
84. Tip #2 Setup con*nous integra*on
85. Tip #3 Write tests
86. Tip #4 Write documenta.on
87. Tip #5 Learn about databases
88. Tip #6 Consider when to use Foundation
89. Tip #7 Use Vapor Cloud
90. Tip #8 Use security packages
91. Tip #9 Use a template language
92. Tip #10 Get involved
93. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on
94. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on • Lots of moving targets (Swi2, Vapor, Vapor Cloud)
95. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on • Lots of moving targets (Swi3, Vapor, Vapor Cloud) • Overhead in crea,ng and maintaining open source packages
96. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on • Lots of moving targets (Swi3, Vapor, Vapor Cloud) • Overhead in crea?ng and maintaining open source packages • Lack of documenta.on
97. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on • Lots of moving targets (Swi3, Vapor, Vapor Cloud) • Overhead in crea?ng and maintaining open source packages • Lack of documenta?on • Outdated resources
98. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on • Lots of moving targets (Swi3, Vapor, Vapor Cloud) • Overhead in crea?ng and maintaining open source packages • Lack of documenta?on • Outdated resources • Few experts
99. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on • Lots of moving targets (Swi3, Vapor, Vapor Cloud) • Overhead in crea?ng and maintaining open source packages • Lack of documenta?on • Outdated resources • Few experts • Lots of boilerplate
100. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on • Lots of moving targets (Swi3, Vapor, Vapor Cloud) • Overhead in crea?ng and maintaining open source packages • Lack of documenta?on • Outdated resources • Few experts • Lots of boilerplate • Linux quirkiness
101. How things have improved • Updates are slowing down (Swi2 and Vapor)
102. How things have improved • Updates are slowing down (Swi3 and Vapor) • Vapor Cloud reached 1.0 and is stable
103. How things have improved • Updates are slowing down (Swi3 and Vapor) • Vapor Cloud reached 1.0 and is stable • We don't create as many open source packages anymore
104. How things have improved • Updates are slowing down (Swi3 and Vapor) • Vapor Cloud reached 1.0 and is stable • We don't create as many open source packages anymore • Documenta*on is improving
105. How things have improved • Updates are slowing down (Swi3 and Vapor) • Vapor Cloud reached 1.0 and is stable • We don't create as many open source packages anymore • DocumentaDon is improving • More and more resources
106. How things have improved • Updates are slowing down (Swi3 and Vapor) • Vapor Cloud reached 1.0 and is stable • We don't create as many open source packages anymore • DocumentaDon is improving • More and more resources • Bigger community - more experts
107. How things have improved • Updates are slowing down (Swi3 and Vapor) • Vapor Cloud reached 1.0 and is stable • We don't create as many open source packages anymore • DocumentaDon is improving • More and more resources • Bigger community - more experts • Less boilerplate
108. How things have improved ... - Swi$ on Linux is more mature
109. What it means to us • 25+ customer projects running in produc3on using Vapor and Vapor Cloud
110. What it means to us • 25+ customer projects running in produc4on using Vapor and Vapor Cloud • 30+ open source packages created
111. What it means to us • 25+ customer projects running in produc4on using Vapor and Vapor Cloud • 30+ open source packages created • Hos$ng fees are going down
112. What it means to us • 25+ customer projects running in produc4on using Vapor and Vapor Cloud • 30+ open source packages created • Hos4ng fees are going down • More and more of our iOS developers starts to catch up
113. What it means to us • 25+ customer projects running in produc4on using Vapor and Vapor Cloud • 30+ open source packages created • Hos4ng fees are going down • More and more of our iOS developers starts to catch up • More rapid development
114. No major issues since we made the switch