aster.cloud aster.cloud
  • /
  • Platforms
    • Public Cloud
    • On-Premise
    • Hybrid Cloud
    • Data
  • Architecture
    • Design
    • Solutions
    • Enterprise
  • Engineering
    • Automation
    • Software Engineering
    • Project Management
    • DevOps
  • Programming
    • Learning
  • Tools
  • About
  • /
  • Platforms
    • Public Cloud
    • On-Premise
    • Hybrid Cloud
    • Data
  • Architecture
    • Design
    • Solutions
    • Enterprise
  • Engineering
    • Automation
    • Software Engineering
    • Project Management
    • DevOps
  • Programming
    • Learning
  • Tools
  • About
aster.cloud aster.cloud
  • /
  • Platforms
    • Public Cloud
    • On-Premise
    • Hybrid Cloud
    • Data
  • Architecture
    • Design
    • Solutions
    • Enterprise
  • Engineering
    • Automation
    • Software Engineering
    • Project Management
    • DevOps
  • Programming
    • Learning
  • Tools
  • About
  • Programming

Announcing Swift Algorithms

  • aster.cloud
  • October 8, 2020
  • 3 minute read

I’m excited to announce Swift Algorithms, a new open-source package of sequence and collection algorithms, along with their related types.

Algorithms are powerful tools for thought because they encapsulate difficult-to-read and error-prone raw loops. The Algorithms package includes a host of powerful, generic algorithms frequently found in other popular programming languages. We hope this new package will help people embrace algorithms, improving the correctness and performance of their code.


Partner with aster.cloud
for your next big idea.
Let us know here.



From our partners:

CITI.IO :: Business. Institutions. Society. Global Political Economy.
CYBERPOGO.COM :: For the Arts, Sciences, and Technology.
DADAHACKS.COM :: Parenting For The Rest Of Us.
ZEDISTA.COM :: Entertainment. Sports. Culture. Escape.
TAKUMAKU.COM :: For The Hearth And Home.
ASTER.CLOUD :: From The Cloud And Beyond.
LIWAIWAI.COM :: Intelligence, Inside and Outside.
GLOBALCLOUDPLATFORMS.COM :: For The World's Computing Needs.
FIREGULAMAN.COM :: For The Fire In The Belly Of The Coder.
ASTERCASTER.COM :: Supra Astra. Beyond The Stars.
BARTDAY.COM :: Prosperity For Everyone.

 

A Brief Tour

With the Algorithms package’s initial set of sequence and collection operations, you can cycle over a collection’s elements, find combinations and permutations, create a random sample, and more.

One inclusion is a pair of chunked methods, each of which break a collection into consecutive subsequences. One version tests adjacent elements to find the breaking point between chunks — you can use it to quickly separate an array into ascending runs:

<span class="k">let</span> <span class="nv">numbers</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">20</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">30</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">40</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">40</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">20</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="k">let</span> <span class="nv">chunks</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">numbers</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="nf">chunked</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nv">by</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="p">{</span> <span class="nv">$0</span> <span class="o"><=</span> <span class="nv">$1</span> <span class="p">})</span>
<span class="c1">// [[10, 20, 30], [10, 40, 40], [10, 20]]</span>

The other version looks for a change in the transformation of each successive value. You can use that to separate a list of names into groups by the first character:

<span class="k">let</span> <span class="nv">names</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="s">"Cassie"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"Chloe"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"Jasmine"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"Jordan"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"Taylor"</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="k">let</span> <span class="nv">chunks</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">names</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="nf">chunked</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nv">on</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="err">\</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">first</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="c1">// [["Cassie", "Chloe"], ["Jasmine", "Jordan"], ["Taylor"]] </span>

You can read more about chunked or any of the other components in the Algorithms package in the included guides:

  • Combinations
  • Permutations
  • Product
  • Chunked
  • Chain
  • Cycle
  • Unique
  • Random Sampling
  • Indexed
  • Partition
  • Rotate
Read More  Microsoft Build 2019 | Learning Q# with Python: building the quantum programming community

 

Relation to the Swift Standard Library

It’s our ambition for the standard library to include a rich, pragmatic set of generic algorithms. We think the Algorithms package can help realize this goal by serving as a low-friction venue to build out new families of related algorithms—giving us an opportunity to iteratively explore the problem space and learn how different algorithms connect and interact—before graduating them into the standard library.

Packages like Swift Algorithms (and Swift Numerics) complement the Swift Evolution process by providing a means to:

  • Engage the community earlier in the development process
  • Channel contributions towards active areas of focus
  • Solicit feedback informed by real-world usage
  • Coherently tackle large tracts of missing functionality

The Algorithms package is, in part, a response to the lengthy SE-0270 review and follow-up Evolution process discussion. With SE-0270, we faced a tension in providing a proposal small enough to make effective use of the Swift discussion forums, but large enough to motivate and ensure the consistency of the additions. Going forward, we plan to experiment with chopping up families of related algorithms into multiple, smaller Evolution proposals, using the presence of the Algorithms package to provide additional context.

However, just because an addition might be a good candidate for inclusion in the Algorithms package, it doesn’t need to begin its life there. This is not a change to the Swift Evolution process. Well-supported pitches will continue to be considered, as always.

 

Contribution Criteria

The immediate focus of the package is to incubate a pragmatic set of algorithms generalized over the Sequence and Collection family of protocols for eventual inclusion in the Swift standard library—the kind of functionality you might find in the Python itertools module or the C++ algorithms library.

Read More  Swift Extension For Visual Studio Code

There are many interesting and useful abstractions that don’t meet this criteria. For example:

  • Currency types (e.g. Result) and data structures (e.g. OrderedDictionary)
  • One-off conveniences (e.g. Dictionary.subscript(key:default:)) that don’t generalize over Sequence or Collection
  • Classic algorithms (e.g. quicksort, merge sort, heapsort, insertion sort, etc.) with more pragmatic alternatives
  • Algorithms over non-linear data structures

For any addition to the Algorithms package, an effort should be made to gather use cases and examine the way the topic has been explored in other languages and on other platforms. To evaluate its suitability, we should ask:

  • Does it aid readability?
  • Is it a common operation?
  • Is it consistent with existing abstractions?
  • Does it help avoid a correctness trap?
  • Does it help avoid a performance trap?

… or conversely:

  • Is it trivially composable? (e.g. !isEmpty)
  • Might it encourage misuse?

 

Get Involved!

Your experience, feedback, and contributions are greatly encouraged!

  • Get started by trying out the Swift Algorithms library on GitHub,
  • Discuss the library and get help in the Swift Algorithms forum,
  • Open an issue with problems you find or ideas you have for improvements,
  • And as noted above, pull requests are welcome for fixes or for new algorithms that meet the criteria of the package!

 

Questions?

Please feel free to ask questions about this post in the associated thread on the Swift forums.

By Nate Cook

Source https://swift.org/blog/swift-algorithms/


For enquiries, product placements, sponsorships, and collaborations, connect with us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!

Our humans need coffee too! Your support is highly appreciated, thank you!

aster.cloud

Related Topics
  • Swift
  • Swift Algorithms
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Architecture
  • Data
  • Engineering
  • People
  • Programming
  • Software Engineering
  • Technology
  • Work & Jobs

Predictions: Top 25 Careers Likely In High Demand In The Future

  • June 6, 2023
View Post
  • Programming
  • Software Engineering
  • Technology

Build a Python App to Alert You When Asteroids Are Close to Earth

  • May 22, 2023
View Post
  • Programming

Illuminating Interactions: Visual State In Jetpack Compose

  • May 20, 2023
View Post
  • Computing
  • Data
  • Programming
  • Software
  • Software Engineering

The Top 10 Data Interchange Or Data Exchange Format Used Today

  • May 11, 2023
View Post
  • Architecture
  • Programming
  • Public Cloud

From Receipts To Riches: Save Money W/ Google Cloud & Supermarket Bills – Part 1

  • May 8, 2023
View Post
  • Programming
  • Public Cloud

3 New Ways To Authorize Users To Your Private Workloads On Cloud Run

  • May 4, 2023
View Post
  • Programming
  • Public Cloud

Buffer HTTP Requests With Cloud Tasks

  • May 4, 2023
View Post
  • Programming
  • Public Cloud
  • Software
  • Software Engineering

Learn About Google Cloud’s Updated Renderer For The Maps SDK For Android

  • May 4, 2023

Stay Connected!
LATEST
  • 1
    Just make it scale: An Aurora DSQL story
    • May 29, 2025
  • 2
    Reliance on US tech providers is making IT leaders skittish
    • May 28, 2025
  • Examine the 4 types of edge computing, with examples
    • May 28, 2025
  • AI and private cloud: 2 lessons from Dell Tech World 2025
    • May 28, 2025
  • 5
    TD Synnex named as UK distributor for Cohesity
    • May 28, 2025
  • Weigh these 6 enterprise advantages of storage as a service
    • May 28, 2025
  • 7
    Broadcom’s ‘harsh’ VMware contracts are costing customers up to 1,500% more
    • May 28, 2025
  • 8
    Pulsant targets partner diversity with new IaaS solution
    • May 23, 2025
  • 9
    Growing AI workloads are causing hybrid cloud headaches
    • May 23, 2025
  • Gemma 3n 10
    Announcing Gemma 3n preview: powerful, efficient, mobile-first AI
    • May 22, 2025
about
Hello World!

We are aster.cloud. We’re created by programmers for programmers.

Our site aims to provide guides, programming tips, reviews, and interesting materials for tech people and those who want to learn in general.

We would like to hear from you.

If you have any feedback, enquiries, or sponsorship request, kindly reach out to us at:

[email protected]
Most Popular
  • 1
    Cloud adoption isn’t all it’s cut out to be as enterprises report growing dissatisfaction
    • May 15, 2025
  • 2
    Hybrid cloud is complicated – Red Hat’s new AI assistant wants to solve that
    • May 20, 2025
  • 3
    Google is getting serious on cloud sovereignty
    • May 22, 2025
  • oracle-ibm 4
    Google Cloud and Philips Collaborate to Drive Consumer Marketing Innovation and Transform Digital Asset Management with AI
    • May 20, 2025
  • notta-ai-header 5
    Notta vs Fireflies: Which AI Transcription Tool Deserves Your Attention in 2025?
    • May 16, 2025
  • /
  • Technology
  • Tools
  • About
  • Contact Us

Input your search keywords and press Enter.