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Understanding Server-Side Swift

Swift is a very young language as it was just released in 2014. It was designed to be a language with an easy syntax but that is as powerful as C. In this chapter, you are going to learn why Swift is an excellent choice when it comes to developing server applications. Swift arrives as a fresh alternative to all current and established solutions.

This chapter will introduce you to the server side of Swift; the basic understanding of Swift itself is something you should be familiar with already. At first, you are going to look at Swift as a generic language and why it fits well into the server world. Afterward, we look at the performance Swift delivers compared to other web technologies. A review of the current state of Swift for servers and an introduction to the new features of Swift 5 will sum this chapter up.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

A quick review of Swift
Swift performance
Swift on the server
The features of Swift 5

Once you have read this chapter, you will be well prepared to start using Swift for your application.

A quick review of Swift

To write server apps in Swift, we require an understanding of where Swift comes from and how it fits into the world of server languages. Swift was invented by Apple engineers as an alternative to C-derivatives, for example, C++, and, Objective-C, Objective-C++. After initially keeping Swift proprietary Apple then released Swift as open source for macOS and Linux. You might have wondered why Apple would bother to make Swift available on Linux, as Apple doesn't usually release any Linux products (not even iTunes).

Swift was designed to be a native language from the very beginning. It means an application gets compiled into binary code that runs directly on the processor, making it the fastest way for an application to run.

When Apple released Swift for Linux, there was little application. The UI was still functioning only on Apple devices, but a good bit of the essential frameworks, Foundation, in particular, was functional on Linux. These frameworks opened the door for some early web frameworks that took Swift and connected it to C libraries that would allow Swift code to run as a web server.

The Perfect framework was the first framework that did this. In September 2016, Tanner Nelson wrote the first version of the Vapor framework, which was loosely based on the Laravel framework (PHP). In May 2017, Vapor 2 was released, which was the first Swift framework that didn't rely on a C library to provide web server functionality. In the meanwhile, IBM started to work on Kitura, yet another framework allowing Swift to be used for web applications.

In early 2018, Apple released SwiftNIO, which is a network library for Swift. You can think of it as "Netty for Swift" if you are familiar with Netty (Java). To put it simply: SwiftNIO provides a very foundational framework to operate in a network and in files, such as opening connections, sending data, receiving data, sending streams, reading streams, and similar operations.

By releasing SwiftNIO, Apple now gave developers an essential set of features to work on server applications. SwiftNIO, like Swift, was also released for Linux.

While Swift has so far been released for macOS and Linux only, work-in-progress versions of Swift and SwiftNIO for Android, Windows, and other platforms exist. While Apple has not announced any plans for support, as an open source project, Swift and NIO can undoubtedly grow in maturity on other platforms. Swift on Linux runs on all available Linux flavors, though only Ubuntu is officially supported.

Let's take a brief look at the history of Swift in the context of other programming languages.

From Fortran to Swift

In this section, we want to take a look at the development of Swift, from Fortran, a very old programming language, up until Swift.

The following diagram and the timeline next to it highlights well how Swift combines the best of numerous worlds:

(Source: http://rigaux.org/language-study/diagram.html)

It stands out that Swift was influenced by Rust, Ruby, Python, Haskel, and C#, making it a very modern language that copied some of the most loved features of the other languages.

Now, we have learned about the history of Swift and where its place is in the world of programming languages. Let's look at Swift's performance compared to other popular web technologies next.

Key benefits

Understand server-side Swift development concepts for building your first microservice

Build microservices using Vapor 4 and deploy them to the cloud using Docker

Learn effective techniques for enhancing maintainability and stability of your Swift applications

Description

The capabilities of the Swift programming language are extended to server-side development using popular frameworks such as Vapor. This enables Swift programmers to implement the microservices approach to design scalable and easy-to-maintain architecture for iOS, macOS, iPadOS, and watchOS applications. This book is a complete guide to building microservices for iOS applications. You’ll start by examining Swift and Vapor as backend technologies and compare them to their alternatives. The book then covers the concept of microservices to help you get started with developing your first microservice. Throughout this book, you’ll work on a case study of writing an e-commerce backend as a microservice application. You’ll understand each microservice as it is broken down into details and written out as code throughout the book. You’ll also become familiar with various aspects of server-side development such as scalability, database options, and information flow for microservices that are unwrapped in the process. As you advance, you’ll get to grips with microservices testing and see how it is different from testing a monolith application. Along the way, you’ll explore tools such as Docker, Postman, and Amazon Web Services. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to build a ready-to-deploy application that can be used as a base for future applications.

What you will learn

Grasp server-side Swift development concepts using practical examples

Understand the microservices approach and why Swift is a great choice for building microservices

Design and structure mobile and web applications using microservices architecture

Discover the available database options and understand which one to choose

Scale and monitor your microservices

Use Postman to automate testing for your microservices API

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Carmi Weinzweig May 25, 2020

Starting with a user service (including sending mail confirmations), the author develops a full micro services architecture built with the latest version of Vapor (Vapor 4). I started with only a little Swift experience and as I have progressed through the book, I have developed a good understanding of both Vapor 4 and why/how to use a microservice architecture. The author has been great about updating the code as Vapor 4 moved from Beta to release.The book develops the back end for an online store and covers everything from handing multi-service user authentication to deploying with Docker/Kubernetes on AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) (although I have not really looked at that section), and Digital Ocean (a great less expensive option for certain kinds of deployments).I saw another review (part of what got me to write this one) and I am not sure what problems he had. It might be he was not working with the right version of Vapor (it was in its final release cycle and updating frequently). I purchased the book on the Apple Book Store (I had an iTunes gift card I wanted to use), and one of the great features of the digital versions is that they get updated as things change (very valuable for technical books).Finally, I recommend that anyone reading this book, join the Vapor community on Discord. The authors of most of the Vapor/Server-Side Swift books are there, and have happily helped as I have been developing my personal project (a web comic and media site), even with other authors’ books.The book starts with great explanation of why one would want to use microservices and what the downsides are as well. The author then explains how one can move from a monolithic app to a microservices architecture, by moving components one at a time, and even using it for add new functionality.Next the author discusses server-side Swift explaining some of its benefits and why Vapor was used as the book’s platform.The book then gives an introduction to Vapor covering its architecture and ORM (Fluent). While it is not a full Vapor 4 tutorial, it is more than enough to get started.With that background, the author begins to layout the architecture of the application being built. Starting with a user service that includes basic address management, the author explains how to test and debug microservices.The product management service is next, and now with two services, the book details how to communicate among one’s microservices. It talks about best practices and pitfalls to avoid. After adding the order service, it is time to cover deployment.Starting with options for hosting and a discussion of the current state of Swift on Linux, the book works its way through what is needed to deploy and scale a Swift-based server-side application. Again, as with its material on Vapor, this is not a complete Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, GCP or Digital Ocean tutorial, but more than enough to get started and understand what else one needs to learn.In addition to the book itself, the author has made available all the source code for the projects being built making it a great starting point for someone working on a real system. Overall, I think it is a great starting point for someone interested in exploring both server-side Swift and microservices.

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Pete D Jun 15, 2020

Being a novice at writing swift Vapor backends, I have a bit of familiarity with how they work. In addition, I’ve been exposed to microservices quite a bit but have never written them myself. Given my knowledge, I found this book to be the perfect intersection of the two. The author does an impeccable job teaching users the concepts of microservices via a swift vapor implementation. In addition, the author does well to describe asynchronous concepts, jobs processing, and other backend type work that goes beyond your typical REST API framework. You’d be hard pressed to find a better swift / vapor microservices backend book.Granted, there are some minor mistakes in this book, however they are simple and reading over it it’s easy to fix when you follow along with the code. In addition, the content is subject to change as it was written while Vapor 4 is in beta. The author says he will update this book when Vapor 4 makes a full public release.How do I know this? Well the author is very involved in the Vapor community, and actively contributes to the chat, and answers anyone’s questions that they have on the book. I personally had some issues when implementing some code, and while it was not due to his fault, but rather a beta issue with Vapor 4, he promptly assisted me in resolving the issue.I’d not like to emphasis small mishaps with this book, because they don’t have much relevance in my opinion. When you purchase this book, you’re not only getting quality content, but you’re getting personal help from the author, and future updates. Now for the price of this book, it’s well worth more than the cost. Along with being in the community, you’ll feel right at home, and the author is sure to make you feel that way too.I’d highly recommend this book, not just for the Vapor 4 side of things, but showing you how to create microservices that are interactive. That in itself is timeless information that will be useful for plenty of years to come.

Vital Zanko Dec 26, 2023

This is a quite good book uncovering Vapor subject especially to someones who are unfamiliar with Swift back end frameworks. Yet that only means its text is mostly useful to get in.But code examples are not well-organized: the author asks to "copy-paste" code from repos of previous chapters when a happy reader is interested in out-of-box repository for the chapter (a reader can be not interested much in the previous chapters and either he should not find out proper steps in them; it makes more sense to provide out-of-box repository that a reader can start easily and may alter working code on his own whether he wishes).

E. Leonard Jun 19, 2021

I returned the book for the following reasons:The source code in the book bears little resemblance to the related Git repository.Even the supplied source code could not be run despite the .env environment being set as required. I could have muddled through and patched it together with a lot of research and trial and error but that defeats the point of a 'how to' book and means you're flying solo, in which case you might not have bothered with the book. I would like o see the book brought up to date and better (no assumptions made) directions in the text. The step1, step 2, step 3 type instructions in the book make a lot of assumed knowledge leaps early on and it requires reading a few times to clear the mist.I so wanted it to be great and give it a 5-stars as there's not enough server-side Swift in the world, unfortunately, this needs a bit of work to get it to a higher rating.

Wunschzettel Kinder Oct 29, 2022

This book would need quite a bit of editing in many directions, some examples:- Explanations/didactics often could be better "The difference to EventLoopFuture is that a Future is what is the result of a Promise" (Page 60)- Missing checks on examples, Chapter 2 compares source for Swift 4.2 and Swift 5 and points out the difference. There is no difference in the book, the lines are identical. (Page 49)- Dependencies between chapters "The following components need to be installed: [...] Docker [...]" (Chapter 5), "Installing Git and Docker" (Chapter 6)- Teaches bad behavior: creating Public / Private Keys via web service - it does mention you should create public/private keys using command line tools, but neither why not how to (book refers to the website) (Page 125/126)In my opinion the book gets a bit better at around chapter 6 / 7, but still could be vastly improved.As of today, I would suggest to buy "Server-Side Swift with Vapor" instead.

Hands-On Swift 5 Microservices Development: Build microservices for mobile and web applications using Swift 5 and Vapor 4

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From Fortran to Swift

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