Swift is evolving at a rapid pace and developers are still figuring out the dos and don'ts of the language. I have seen some fantastic talks over the past few months. These are the ones you should watch.
Controlling Complexity in Swift
Andy Matuschak, currently working at Khan Academy and former Apple employee, talks about value types in Swift. Structures in Swift are incredibly powerful and versatile. In this talk, Andy emphasizes the value and benefits of value types versus reference types. If you are thinking of giving Swift a try, then this talk is for you.
Unidirectional Data Flow in Swift
In this talk, Benjamin Encz presents a compelling alternative to the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern. What fascinates me most is the simplicity of this solution and how drastically it differs from the patterns found in Cocoa. Even though performance is something that worries me, I'm certainly going to give it a try to find out how it feels and performs.
Advanced NSOperations
This is one of my favorite sessions from last year's WWDC. The NSOperation class is a powerful tool of the Foundation framework. In this session, Philippe Hausler and Dave DeLong discuss how Apple has supercharged NSOperation to make complex flows manageable by breaking them down into reusable pieces. Philippe and Dave take the WWDC application as an example. Complex problems are broken down into small, manageable chunks, removing tight coupling and monster classes.
Functional View Controllers
Last year, Chris Eidhof gave a great talk at UIKonf about functional view controllers. Chris discusses a problem many iOS developers struggle with, large, complex view controllers that know too much and are tightly coupled to various pieces of an application. The approach Chris outlines in his talk shows promise and potential. It's easy to apply and something I'm certainly going to try out.
Protocol-Oriented Programming in Swift
Swift is a brand new programming language and we are still figuring out what the best practices are, how certain problems are solved, and what legacy we can leave behind us. Protocol-oriented programming is a pattern that is gaining traction in the Swift community. Protocols in Swift are much more powerful than their Objective-C counterparts and they offer an elegant alternative to subclassing and categories. In this talk from WWDC 2015, Dave Abrahams lays out what protocol-oriented programming is and how to apply it. Dave is a funny man and his presentation is a pleasure to watch.
Favorite Talks
What are some of your favorite talks about Swift? It's difficult to keep track with so many conferences and meetups being organized.
