Why a Good Swift Developer Doesn’t Need to Know a Ton of Patterns

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“I prefer to use MVVM.” “No Viper would be better in this scenario.” “No, I think that MVC is best in all circumstances.”

“We need to use the adapter pattern here, no Decorator, no Facade…” The conversation is everlasting.

Patterns, patterns, patterns. There are so many patterns and everyone has a ton of opinions about each one. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sea of patterns that exist out there. I understand that there is value to knowing patterns. Each pattern is designed to provide a solution to very common scenarios. And I have come to appreciate the value of many of the patterns. However, you don’t need to know a lot of patterns to be a great Swift developer.

I’m sure you’ve heard the opposite. You’ve heard that to be a good Swift developer you must know tons of patterns. And if you want to, by all means, listen to that advice. But here is why I’m saying that knowing patterns is not a pre-requisite for a being great Swift developer.

Patterns are based on principles, so learn the principles and you’ll write better code

1. Modularity
2. Reusability
3. Easy to read
4. Easy to modify.