Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. -Benjamin Franklin
In this lab, we'll work with enums, structs, protocols, and extensions.
POP = Protocol Oriented Programming
OOP = Object Oriented Programming
Apple's advice for POP is "don't start with a class, start with a protocol". Lets do exactly that in this lab.
We will be building our structures horizontally (POP) rather than vertically (OOP). When designing your various classes vertically, you're utilizing inheritance, creating a base class, then adding functionality through subclassing.
With protocols, we're not stuck with subclassing from one base class. We can adopt as many protocols as we need and plug them in, take them out as we please during our development cycle.
We will be designing a school (focusing on the administrative side, not the students). Our end goal is to create three structures:
- AdvisoryBoardMember
- Principal
- Teacher
In creating these three structures, there's a lot of similarity shared between them. Historically this problem was solved using inheritance (Object-Oriented Programming), but we're going to start with a protocol, not a class. And like I stated, we're going to be creating these as structures, not classes.
A quick overview of the journey we're about to go on. We're going to create a Payable, TimeOff, Teach, Employee and Reprimand protocol. We will then extend each protocol to provide default implementation. After that we will create our three structures, AdvisoryBoardMember, Principal, and Teacher. Each of these structures will adopt and conform to the protocols we created, but some will conform to only a few. Not every protocol will be adopted by every structure.
(1) - In the School.swift file, create a protocol called Payable that has one function requirement. The name of the function should be wages(). It takes in no arguments but returns back a Double.
(2) - Below where you created the Payable protocol, create an extension on the Payable protocol and implement the wages() function. In your implementation, it should just return back 50_000.00. Notice how I used an underbar here, this can act as a comma (as if you were writing it in on paper), it doesn't do anything in code. It just makes your code more readable instead of having to see a bunch of zeros next to each other.
(3) - Still in the same file (School.swift), create another protocol called TimeOff which includes a property named vacationDays of type Int that will be both gettable and settable. It should include a function called requestForVacation(_:) which takes in one argument named days of type Int and returns a Bool.
(4) - Below this TimeOff protocol, create an extension on the TimeOff protocol where we will provide some default implementation to the requestForVacation(_:) function. In our implementation of the requestForVacation(_:) function, you should return true if and only if there are enough vacationDays to satisfy the request. If the vacationDays is equal to 9 and requestForVacation(10) is called by that instance (which will be our structure later on), then it should return false.
(5) - Lets create an enum. This enum is called Punishment and should have three cases. severe, light and medium.
(6) - Create a protocol called Reprimand which requires that there be two functions. The first function is called disciplineStudent(_:) which takes in one argument called scale of type Punishment and returns a String. The second function is called callParentDeliveringMessage(_:) which takes in one argument called scale of type Punishment and returns a String.
(7) - Create an extension on the Reprimand protocol and provide default implementation for the two functions required by this protocol. In your implementation of the disciplineStudent(_:) function it should switch on the scale argument and return the following String based upon that case:
If the case is .severe - "We are expelling you from the school!"
If the case is .light - "You're to go back to class, don't do it again."
If the case is .medium - "Why would you think that's a good idea?! You're going to detention."
In your implementation of the callParentDeliveringMessage(_:) method, it should switch on the scale argument and return the following String based upon that case:
If the case is .severe - "Your child has been expelled from the school."
If the case is .light - "Your child thought it was funny to put gum in Amy's hair."
If the case is .medium - "Your child has become a terror in the classroom."
(8) - Create an enum called Subject which has three cases. math, science and english.
(9) - Create a protocol called Teach which requires that there be one function. That one function should be called teachSubject(_:) which takes in one argument called subject of type Subject. It will return a String.
(10) - Create an extension on Teach and provide a default implementation of the teachSubject(_:) function.
In your implementation, you should switch on the subject argument and return the following String based upon the specific case.
If the case is .math - "Take out your math books please."
If the case is .science - "Time to learn the best subject of all! Science!!"
If the case is .english - "To read or not to read. Everyone take out your english books.
Lets now head over to the SchoolEmployees.swift file. We're going to create our three structures.
(11) - Create a new struct called AdvisoryBoardMember which has two instance properties (both of which should be variables). One should be called name of type String. The other should be called vacationDays of type Int with a default value of 30. As well, implement the function wages() which takes in no argument and returns a Double. In your implementation of this function, you should return back the number 100_000.00 (or 100000.00, they are both the same thing).
(12) Next is something that will show how powerful these protocols really are. Extend the AdvisoryBoardMember struct and adopt the following the following protocols in this extension.
PayableTimeOff
Do not implement any functions within this extension. You are just adopting the various protocols. The Payable protocol requires that we implement the wages() function, which we already did when we created our structure. But we also created a default implementation of this wages() function in the extension of our protocol. Because of how we defined it, if we were to call on wages() on an instance of AdvisoryBoardMember, it would jump to the implementation that we created in our declaration of the AdvisoryBoardMember class and return back 100_000.00, not 50_000.00.
The TimeOff protocol asks us to conform to it by supplying a gettable / settable property named vacationDays, which we already did. It also asks to implement a function requestForVacation(_:) which we didn't do, nor do we have to. We provided a default implementation in our extension of the protocol, so there's nothing else we need to do here.
(13) - Create a new struct called Principal which has two instance properties (both of which should be variables). One is called name of type String. The other is called vacationDays of type Int with a default value of 20 . As well, implement the wages() function which takes in no arguments and returns a Double. In your implementation, it should return back 80_000.00.
(14) - Following the creation of that struct, extend the Principal struct and adopt the following protocols
PayableTimeOffReprimand
Similar to what we just did, do NOT implement any functions in this extension, it will just be empty. Any instance of Principal now has all of the functionality that was supplied through the extensions on these various protocols for free.
(15) - Create a struct called Teacher which has two instance properties (both should be variables). One is called name of type String. The other is called vacationDays of type Int with a default value of 15. Do not implement the wages() function.
(16) - Create an extension on Teacher and have it adopt the following protocols
PayableTimeOffTeach
Do not implement anything in this extension, it should be blank.
(17) - There's one more neat thing you can do here. If you notice something, each struct here shares the Payable and TimeOff protocol. Those seem to be something inherit to every single employee. Well, we can create an Employee protocol which adopts the Payable & TimeOff protocols. Crazy stuff, lets do it.
Going back to the School.swift file, lets type this in:
protocol Employee: Payable, TimeOff { }So anyone that adopts this Employee protocol must also conform to the Payable and TimeOff protocols as well! So we can now go back to our SchoolEmployees.swift file and take out where each struct is adopting the Payable and TimeOff protocol and replace it with the Employee protocol (which now accounts for both of those).
You can test out your code in the ViewController.swift file, writing code in the viewDidLoad() function.
ALSO!, there are two test files which are making sure you implement everything correctly. You can look at these tests in the ProtocolTests.swift file and the SchoolEmployeeTests.swift file.
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