Book Image

Swift Protocol-Oriented Programming - Fourth Edition

By : Jon Hoffman
Book Image

Swift Protocol-Oriented Programming - Fourth Edition

By: Jon Hoffman

Overview of this book

Protocol-oriented programming is an incredibly powerful concept at the heart of Swift's design. Swift's standard library was developed using POP techniques, generics, and first-class value semantics; therefore, it is important for every Swift developer to understand these core concepts and take advantage of them. The fourth edition of this book is improved and updated to the latest version of the Swift programming language. This book will help you understand what protocol-oriented programming is all about and how it is different from other programming paradigms such as object-oriented programming. This book covers topics such as generics, Copy-On-Write, extensions, and of course protocols. It also demonstrates how to use protocol-oriented programming techniques via real-world use cases. By the end of this book, you will know how to use protocol-oriented programming techniques to build powerful and practical applications.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)

Generics in a protocol-oriented design

Now that we have seen how to use generics, let's see how we can use them in a protocol- oriented design. In a previous example in this chapter, we created a generic List type; however, we can greatly improve on this design by using what we have learned throughout this chapter. We will include only a small subset of the actual requirements for a List type so we can focus on the design, rather than all the requirements.

With a protocol-oriented design, we always start with the protocol. The following code shows the List protocol:

protocol List { 
    associatedtype T 
    subscript<E:  Sequence>(indices: E)  -> [T] 
         where E.Iterator.Element == Int { get } 
    mutating func add(_  item: T) 
    func length() -> Int 
    func get(at index: Int) -> T? 
    mutating func delete(at index: Int) 
} 

We start the List...