Is there a better way of coping with Swift's nested "if let" "pyramid of doom?"

As commenters have said, Swift 1.2 now has multiple-let syntax:

if let jsonValue = users?.first,       json = jsonValue.object,       userIDValue = json[ "id" ],       doubleID = userIDValue.double,       userID = doubleID.map({ String(Int(doubleID))}){    println( userID )}

That said, in this instance it looks like you could might be able to do it all via optional chaining in 1.1, depending on what your objects are:

if let userID = users?.first?.object?["id"]?.double.map({String(Int($0))}) {    println(userID)}

Note, much better to use first (if this is an array) rather than [0], to account for the possibility the array is empty. And map on the double rather than ! (which would blow up if the value is not double-able).

UPDATE for Swift-3 : The syntax has changed :

if let jsonValue = users?.first,       let json = jsonValue.object,       let userIDValue = json[ "id" ],       let doubleID = userIDValue.double,       let userID = doubleID.map({ String(Int(doubleID))}){    println( userID )}

In Swift 2, we have the guard statement.

Instead of:

func myFunc(myOptional: Type?) {  if let object = myOptional! {    ...  }}

You can do it like this:

func myFunc(myOptional: Type?) {  guard array.first else { return }}

Check http://nshipster.com/guard-and-defer/ from NSHipster.