Hello developers…
How many of you find swift as your favorite programming
language? What if your favorite swift
could make you now a full stack developer. Yes!! swift is now extended for server side
development. Developers, it’s time to reduce your dependency on Java (No
offense Java fans). I am happy to share
here my initial experience, learning and challenges with this new born baby.
My journey with Kitura & server side swift started with
WWDC 2016 held at San Francisco, California. Ever since I started working on
iOS technology & swift, I was carrying a thought that – Java is the only most
powerful full stack programming language. It really sounded wow when I first
heard about enabling swift as a server side programming language. It was at
WWDC, I came to know that IBM has come up with a powerful framework “Kitura”
for server side web services and web applications. This boosted my excitement towards Kitura
with my bigger vision to become a full stack developer. Thanks to server side
swift and Kitura.
There are various other toolkits and frameworks for server
side swift such as Perfect, Vapor etc., but Kitura is close to me. It’s like my
first ever pencil to write Alphabets
And yea it’s a bonus when the product is from an enterprise pioneer , IBM .
Understanding
Kitura basics – Where to Start & How
For many of the beginners from iOS App development team or a
node.js api development team, server side swift could be interesting but may
not be finding a way to start, try it out and work.
Are you one among them?
Becoming a full stack developer could be many of the
developer’s goal , but most of them are focused to backend or just front end in
their day today work life. Typically, your role could be …
"I am a front end iOS app developer who knows swift but don’t
have any idea on api development" (or)
"I am a backend api developer and have written a lot of micro
services in node.js or plain java kind of language that connects with different
types DB, but Kitura? because I don’t know swift"
It’s easy. Let me walk you through simple steps that helps
us to start into Kitura based development.
Pre-requisites:
1.
Learn to work with Git repository. Get
comfortable with some basic git commands.
Here is the Link –
2.
Bluemix & CF commands – Know the basics of
Bluemix. How to push and deploy an application to the bluemix cloud platform.
Know about cloud foundry commands to work with blue mix. Here are some useful links
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/cloud/library/cl- bluemixfoundry/
Let’s start...
Before we begin with Kitura,
let us know about the power of swift to why it could be a better programming
language for server side development and understand its key features.
• Swift
is focusing towards enterprise development ecosystem
• Swift
is Open Source - Swift 3.0 is the current required version for server side
development.
• It
runs on Linux / Mac OS
• Server
Swift is natively compiled & fast compared to JS/Java code
• It
consumes Low Memory & good for cloud workloads.
• Build
time & No of average threads is less when compared to JS based runtimes.
• The
base is the Package Manager, similar to NPM for node.js. But unlike node.js,
package manager doesn’t have a centralized repository.
What is Kitura. How it works?
A light-weight web
framework written in Swift, that allows
you to develop web services with complex routes,
easily.
For node.js developers – This is
like an 'Express' framework for node.js
For iOS developers – This is like a
Alomofire framework built using swift and makes the server side web service
development easy.
Kitura is a base web framework that
supports HTTP. We can bind several other supporting frameworks from the Package
Manager to develop the complete component.
Kitura Package Manager
Open source and available at https://github.com/IBM-Swift . Discover
the many new libraries, modules, and packages for Kitura based development.
Where to start?
You can start with the below
starter sample pack. Git clone the below repository and start explore, modify
and experiment before you consume other frameworks.
Project Structure
The project is well structured and
organized as given below.
a.
Public folder contains the resources required
for the web application like HTML, images etc.
b.
Sources contains the folder, aka Modules, which
will contain a “main.swift“ file . This is the start of the project. More like
a Main.java / app.js / AppDelegate.swift.
c.
Package.swift is the dependency file where all
the other dependent frameworks/packages are defined. This gets bounded &
linked at swift compile.
Note: Every time a new package is defined, a swift build is needed to
link them.
d.
Manifest.yml is the property kind of file that
defines the deployment configuration information used when deployed through
cloud foundry.
How to Deploy & Run?
In a Linux/ Mac machine, Kitura
projects can be deployed and run locally to complete the development before we
push it to the server that supports swift runtime.
IBM Bluemix is one of the cloud environment
that supports swift runtime and recommended for Kitura based deployment.
Below is the bluemix URL.
A 30 days trial account can be
setup on registration if you don’t have a bluemix account.
Bluemix Kitura starter pack can be
downloaded from the below public Git link .
The server deployment &
management can be done via
• Cloud
Foundry – Command Lines
• IBM
Cloud Tools (ICT) for swift
• Bluemix
Portal – Monitor and work
with Instance, services etc.
http://cloudtools.bluemix.net/
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I hope that this would have given some start point for the server side swift development. I will be extending my blog on common issues and
how to fix them.
Feel free to comment below for any questions on suggestion.
Sangeeth
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