Improves Developer Ergonomics for LambdaHandler Conformances #272

hectormatos2011 · 2022-09-30T17:34:00Z

This PR aims to improve developer ergonomics for simple LambdaHandler conformances when trying to quickly put together a local server to test against.

Motivation:

Swift 5.7 added primary associated types for protocols where you can start using generic bracket syntax for protocols. An issue for this was opened not too long ago in this repo (#266) with the primary motivation of improving developer ergonomics around types conforming to LambdaHander. However, swift's type inference system should be able to handle the aforementioned issue just fine without using primary associated types (although support for that could still be useful when defining properties conforming to LambdaHandler when you want to constrain the types).

Swift's type inference system does not pick up the Event and Output types for objects conforming to LambdaHandler because those types are defined in the covariant protocol EventLoopLambdaHandler. This means that you need to add type aliases for Event and Output when conforming to LambdaHandler - resulting in less than ideal developer ergonomics when trying to spin up a quick little local server.

Additionally, the initializer for LambdaHandler is currently a required function in the protocol. This is super useful for setup logic for your Handlers but degrades the developer ergonomics of the most simple/minimal use-case for LambdaHandlers. Developers should be able to continue having the capability of writing simple lambda handlers like they could do in 0.5.2:

import AWSLambdaRuntime
import Foundation

Lambda.run { (context, input: Request, callback: @escaping (Result<String, Error>) -> Void) in
    callback(.success(...))
}

The current state of affairs in comparison is to explicitly define the Event and Output associated types of LambdaHandler when writing a simple lambda as well as being forced to include an init that isn't necessarily always required to successfully run a simple lambda:

import AWSLambdaRuntime
import Foundation

@main
struct EntryHandler: LambdaHandler {
    typealias Event = SomeCodableEventType
    typealias Output = SomeCodableOutputType
   
    init(context: AWSLambdaRuntimeCore.LambdaInitializationContext) async throws {
        // The body of this could be blank and the lambda would still work
    }
   
    func handle(_ event: Event, context: LambdaContext) async throws -> Output {
        // lambda logic
    }
}

With the changes on main, a developer loses the ease of writing a three-line lambda that they could do in 0.5.2.

On top of all of this, when needing to run a server locally in Xcode, a developer would need to add an environment variable to their local scheme. This isn't a much used feature in Xcode for developers coming from iOS who are looking to maybe start writing swift on the server. This isn't too big of a deal, but could be a bit of pain to do when trying to set yourself up with Lambda for the first time. It also introduces the possibility of having to manage two different environment variables if you're switching between debugging in Xcode or running the server locally in your Terminal. It would be nice to have the capability of defining this in code so a developer wouldn't have to open a separate window to toggle a server running locally.

I may be wrong about this (not a lot of experience writing swift on the server), but if a developer is running a local server in Xcode, it should be safe to assume that the server isn't running on an environment like AWS Lambda or Docker. I think that if a server is running their Lambda in Xcode, LOCAL_LAMBDA_SERVER_ENABLED should be enabled by default. Doing so would enable developers to package ready-to-go example local servers with their example mobile apps (maybe they want to demonstrate the usage of an SDK or something).

Currently, developers in this situation would have to instruct their users to set up this LOCAL_LAMBDA_SERVER_ENABLED environment variable. If a user is a swift developer already, they might have the urge to open that Package in Xcode and just hit run without knowing they need to set that variable up.

With the support of a variable for enabling running as a local server in Lambda directly, a developer could package a ready-to-go local server package with their example apps that would only require opening the package and running in Xcode with no extra set up.

Modifications:

Removes ambiguities between LambdaHandler, EventLoopLambdaHandler, and ByteBufferLambdaHandler. The handle(_:context:) functions shared across all three prevented the swift compiler from properly inferring the Event and Output types between LambdaHandler and EventLoopLambdaHandler. The handle(_:context:) functions are now more descriptive with their primary parameter to match the protocol they are associated with:
- LambdaHandler.handle(_:context) has now been changed to LambdaHandler(request:context:)
- EventLoopLambdaHandler.handle(_:context) has now been changed to EventLoopLambdaHandler(event:context:)
- ByteBufferLambdaHandler.handle(_:context) has now been changed to ByteBufferLambdaHandler(buffer:context:)
Adds an init function to the LambdaHandler protocol
- Adds a default implementation for init(context:) that calls through to init() - this allows fully qualified structs conforming to LambdaHandler to omit their initializers if no setup is required for the Lambda handler
Adds a static var isLocalServerEnabled to the ByteBufferLambdaHandler protocol
- Default is true when running in Xcode, but still respects the LOCAL_LAMBDA_SERVER_ENABLED environment variable.
- This defaults to false if running outside of Xcode
Updates tests with new changes

Result:

With all of the changes in this PR, a developer could package a local lambda handler Swift Package with an example app that could look like this:

@main
final class EntryHandler: LambdaHandler {
    func handle(request: YourDecodableRequest, context: LambdaContext) -> YourEncodableResponse {
        // lambda logic
    }
}

All previous logic is still retained but the optional code needed is now opt-in with sensible defaults.

…zationContext

…ng. Try putting the override as an instance function of the initialization context struct

…etter developer ergonomics for users that are trying to implement a simple Lambda but don't care to do any setup during initialization.

…tocol. This allows a developer to drop the requirement for defining their own typealiases in their LambdaHandler conformances

… on 5.6 and such)

…in Xcode only

swift-server-bot · 2022-09-30T17:34:03Z