Out of Comfort Zone

Intro

During the course, a lot of swift details are touched from Lesson 1 to 3 and the classical MVC is practised in Lesson 3.
本篇侧重swift的强类型特性以及struct的特点。

Strong type language

Swift is smart enough to know the type and you can ommit the type in decalaring, function parameters and son on. For example, instance declaring:

var userIsInTheMiddleOfTypingANumber: Bool = false
var userIsInTheMiddleOfTypingANumber = false

Because in swift class, all the instances need an intialization and swift can infer the instance type from its value.
Below is the example for Array and Dictionary declaring:

var testStack = [Int]() // perferred style
var testStack = Array<Int>()

var testDic = [String : Int]() // perferred style
var testDic = Dictionary<String, Int>()

class && struct

In swift, many data structures are struct, like Int, Array and Dictionary, etc. It’s much different from that in Obj-C since Array and Dictionary and so on are class.
However, in swift, struct is much like class, and it can have func and computed property just like class does. The differences are :

1. only class can have inherition
2. struct is passed by value as parameters while class is passed by reference

Here we talk a little more about struct passed by value.

func testFunc(operand: [Int])

In testFunc, there will be a copy of operand and this copy is immutable. Why? The reason is that ther is always a hidden let before every func’s parameter. As a result, if we want to do something on the Array, we need make it mutable, like:

func testFunc(operand: [Int])
{
    var localOperand = operand //1
    let op = localOperand.removeLast() //2
}

In Line 1, there is a local copy of operand and localOperand is mutable. Although there is a copy, swift may not do the really copy of operand in implementation and swift may still make a reference of that array. In this way, it can be much effency.
In Line 2, we make changes on localOperand, and at this time swift still not do a copy. It can only remember the change and reuse the unchanged one. It is really amasing when I first learn it and it indicates swift is a smart enough language.

All in all, swift is really a smart language and is valuable to learn!