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
   

   View Slide

2. View Slide

3. View Slide

4. View Slide

5. Swi$
   ❤
   Linux
   

   View Slide

6. View Slide

7. Kitura
   Perfect
   Vapor
   Zewo
   

   View Slide

8. Pros
   • Swi$
   

   View Slide

9. Pros
   • Swi%
   • Fast
   

   View Slide

10. Pros
    • Swi%
    • Fast
    • Code share
    

    View Slide

11. Pros
    • Swi%
    • Fast
    • Code share
    • More fullstack developers
    

    View Slide

12. Pros
    • Swi%
    • Fast
    • Code share
    • More fullstack developers
    • Xcode
    

    View Slide

13. Pros
    • Swi%
    • Fast
    • Code share
    • More fullstack developers
    • Xcode
    • Big community
    

    View Slide

14. Cons
    • New language
    

    View Slide

15. Cons
    • New language
    • New package manager
    

    View Slide

16. Cons
    • New language
    • New package manager
    • New framework
    

    View Slide

17. Cons
    • New language
    • New package manager
    • New framework
    • Xcode
    

    View Slide

18. Cons
    • New language
    • New package manager
    • New framework
    • Xcode
    • Hos$ng
    

    View Slide

19. Cons
    • New language
    • New package manager
    • New framework
    • Xcode
    • Hos6ng
    • Lack of libraries
    

    View Slide

20. Programming languages in the making
    • JavaScript (1995): 22 years
    • Java (1996): 21 years
    • Ruby (1996): 21 years
    • Swi$ (2014): 3 years
    

    View Slide

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.
    

    View Slide

22. The future is bright for server-side
    Swi/
    

    View Slide

23. View Slide

24. Kitura
    Perfect
    Vapor
    

    View Slide

25. Kitura
    Perfect
    Vapor
    

    View Slide

26. Kitura
    Perfect
    Vapor
    

    View Slide

27. View Slide

28. Hi, my name is
    Steffen D. Sommer
    !
    

    View Slide

29. View Slide

30. View Slide

31. View Slide

32. View Slide

33. Steffen iOS
    

    View Slide

34. Steffen
    ❤
    iOS Swi*
    

    View Slide

35. Swi$ as a language, not iOS as a
    pla/orm
    

    View Slide

36. View Slide

37. View Slide

38. iOS != Vapor
    

    View Slide

39. iOS != Vapor
    Number of users
    

    View Slide

40. iOS
    - 1
    

    View Slide

41. Vapor
    - Lots of users
    

    View Slide

42. iOS != Vapor
    Performance
    

    View Slide

43. iOS
    - Not an issue
    

    View Slide

44. Vapor
    - Users do not want to wait for requests to return
    

    View Slide

45. Vapor
    - Users do not want to wait for requests to return
    - More performance = more money
    

    View Slide

46. iOS != Vapor
    Crash handling
    

    View Slide

47. iOS
    - "We'll fix it in the next app update"
    

    View Slide

48. Vapor
    - Fix it now
    

    View Slide

49. iOS != Vapor
    Updates
    

    View Slide

50. iOS
    - 2 week release cycles
    

    View Slide

51. Vapor
    - Whenever we want
    

    View Slide

52. iOS != Vapor
    Pla$orms
    

    View Slide

53. iOS
    - One pla(orm to rule them all
    

    View Slide

54. Vapor
    - macOS + Linux
    

    View Slide

55. iOS != Vapor
    Foundation
    

    View Slide

56. iOS
    -
    !
    

    View Slide

57. Vapor
    -
    !
    

    View Slide

58. iOS != Vapor
    Breaking changes in the API
    

    View Slide

59. iOS
    - Good to go
    

    View Slide

60. Vapor
    - Handle different versions depending on the client
    

    View Slide

61. iOS != Vapor
    The Xcode project file
    

    View Slide

62. iOS
    - Merge madness
    

    View Slide

63. Vapor
    - .. what file?
    

    View Slide

64. iOS != Vapor
    Third party frameworks
    

    View Slide

65. iOS
    - Which one to pick?
    

    View Slide

66. Vapor
    - Roll out your own
    

    View Slide

67. iOS != Vapor
    User Interfaces
    

    View Slide

68. iOS
    - Storyboards and auto layout
    

    View Slide

69. Vapor
    - HTML, CSS and JavaScript
    

    View Slide

70. iOS != Vapor
    Persistence
    

    View Slide

71. iOS
    - Used to some extent
    

    View Slide

72. Vapor
    - Used heavily
    

    View Slide

73. iOS != Vapor
    Security
    

    View Slide

74. iOS
    - Mostly handled by the OS
    

    View Slide

75. Vapor
    - Needs to be a first class ci/zen in your project
    

    View Slide

76. iOS != Vapor
    Consumers
    

    View Slide

77. iOS
    - None
    

    View Slide

78. Vapor
    - Frontend
    

    View Slide

79. iOS != Vapor
    Releasing
    

    View Slide

80. iOS
    - iTunes Connect
    

    View Slide

81. Vapor
    - Deploying
    

    View Slide

82. Tips to overcome these challenges
    

    View Slide

83. Tip #1
    Start repor)ng
    

    View Slide

84. Tip #2
    Setup con*nous integra*on
    

    View Slide

85. Tip #3
    Write tests
    

    View Slide

86. Tip #4
    Write documenta.on
    

    View Slide

87. Tip #5
    Learn about databases
    

    View Slide

88. Tip #6
    Consider when to use Foundation
    

    View Slide

89. Tip #7
    Use Vapor Cloud
    

    View Slide

90. Tip #8
    Use security packages
    

    View Slide

91. Tip #9
    Use a template language
    

    View Slide

92. Tip #10
    Get involved
    

    View Slide

93. My experiences with Vapor in
    produc4on
    

    View Slide

94. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on
    • Lots of moving targets (Swi2, Vapor, Vapor Cloud)
    

    View Slide

95. My experiences with Vapor in produc4on
    • Lots of moving targets (Swi3, Vapor, Vapor Cloud)
    • Overhead in crea,ng and maintaining open source packages
    

    View Slide

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
    

    View Slide

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
    

    View Slide

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
    

    View Slide

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
    

    View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

101. How things have improved
     • Updates are slowing down (Swi2 and Vapor)
     

     View Slide

102. How things have improved
     • Updates are slowing down (Swi3 and Vapor)
     • Vapor Cloud reached 1.0 and is stable
     

     View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

108. How things have improved
     ...
     - Swi$ on Linux is more mature
     

     View Slide

109. What it means to us
     • 25+ customer projects running in produc3on using Vapor and
     Vapor Cloud
     

     View Slide

110. What it means to us
     • 25+ customer projects running in produc4on using Vapor and
     Vapor Cloud
     • 30+ open source packages created
     

     View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

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
     

     View Slide

114. No major issues since we made the
     switch
     

     View Slide