A Flock of Swifts
We are a group of people excited by the Swift language. We meet each Saturday morning to share and discuss Swift-related topics.
All people and all skill levels are welcome to join.
2021.06.26
Join us next Saturday:
2021.06.19
Izzi Pics App Feedback
Emil Safier asked our opinion on his screenshots for marketing his Izzi Pics app.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/izzipics/id1476207437?mt=8
He also has a TestFlight version available.
Slow Watch Reminders Updates
Mark not getting good performance. Perhaps his iCloud data store needs to be reset? It is a scary operation so caution is advised.
John James needs to get a new watch or replace his battery. Discussion about "right to repair".
Existential and Universal Types in Swift
A presentation from Josh about the difference between existential protocol types, generics, type erased Any*, and some types.
Universals:
- Generic functions
AnyAnyObject,AnyClass- Concrete generic type erasers:
Any*AnySequence,AnyView,AnyPublisherExistentials: - existentials (SE-309):
let a: CustomStringConvertible = 1. Dynamically implemented by witness table. some:let a: some CustomStringConvertible = 1. Statically known at compile time. A question from Josh A in the chat we didn't notice. (We'll discuss the answer next week):
Hope this isn't a silly question, but why do we need "some", couldn't we do something like T, like just a normal generic? Is it because we want the compiler to know the type? Or is it because there are so many different ways to satisfy the "View protocol" having a normal generic wouldn't work?
The "some type" is called a "reverse generic" because the implementation body determines the implementation. With normal generics the caller determines the concrete type which would not work for "some View".
Apple Logo
Looking at the details of this code from Jordan Singer. https://twitter.com/jsngr/status/1405232521256841219
Fighting Xcode, Zoom, macOS
Ray had significant problems sharing his screen today. Somehow hopes to fix this for next week.
2021.06.12
WWDC Discussion
You are probably best off using the developer app to watch the videos. Get started here:
https://developer.apple.com/wwdc21/
Josh talked about some of the major themes and surprises from this year.
- Continued improvement to bring parity to all platforms but not do something like run Mac apps on iPad.
- Markdown support for Text
- No developments on Combine. Pushes the FRP story out by another year.
Other discussion:
- Frank's pick was Demystifying SwiftUI
- Column breakpoints!
- ARC observed lifetime vs guaranteed lifetime
We will be talking a lot more about these things in the coming weeks.
2021.06.05
-
Ray will be live on the Raywenderlich podcast after WWDC. Signup here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Rljgpr44Twag3K9BbM3kuw
-
Emily asked about showing a different viewcontroller at startup depending on Userdefaults. We discussed using childViewControllers and setting the rootViewController programatically from the Appdelegate or the SceneDelegate
func scene(_ scene: UIScene, willConnectTo session: UISceneSession, options connectionOptions: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) {
let contentView = ContentView()
if let windowScene = scene as? UIWindowScene {
let window = UIWindow(windowScene: windowScene)
window.rootViewController = figureOutWhichVCGoesHere()
self.window = window
window.makeKeyAndVisible()
}
}-
Dan's app is available on the app store. Check it out here: https://apps.apple.com/mu/app/mygames-database/id1559848159
-
Ed demoed his brother hackathon entry for buying/renting AR rendered NFT's.
-
Josh demoed the problem with classes and shared mutable state that
actorsare designed to solve. For example this code is not thread safe:
final class Poop {
private var count: Int = 0
private let serialQueue = DispatchQueue(label: String(reflecting: Poop.self))
func poo() {
count += 1
print(count == 1 ? "💩 is good" : "\(count) bad 💩 happened!!!!")
count -= 1
}
}
let poop = Poop()
for _ in 0..<10 {
DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async {
poop.poo()
}
}It can be made thread safe by adding locks or a serial DispatchQueue, but this results in a programmer guarantee and not a compiler guarantee:
final class Poop {
private var count: Int = 0
private let serialQueue = DispatchQueue(label: String(reflecting: Poop.self))
func poo() {
serialQueue.async { [weak self] in
guard let self = self else { return }
self.count += 1
print(self.count == 1 ? "💩 is good" : "\(self.count) bad 💩 happened!!!!")
self.count -= 1
}
}
}
let poop = Poop()
for _ in 0..<10 {
DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async {
poop.poo()
}
}- We discussed the types in Swift and when to use them:
- enum
- Is your type heterogeneous?
- Does your type represent discretely many states?
- enum is a value unless you use the indirect keyword
- struct
- structs have value semantics
- Copy on write for types that are implemented as references
- Sendable thread safe by default
- tuple
- tuple have value semantics
- anonymous
- Sendable thread safe by default
- class
- class has reference semantics
- Implies shared ownership
- Allows inheritance (don’t use it for non obj C code)
- Not thread safe unless its immutable or you guarantee safety
- Have lifetime with init and deinit
- actor
- actor has reference semantics
- Implies shared ownership
- No inheritance
- Thread safe and Sendable but you pay a performance cost
- func
- func is a reference type
- Not thread safe; you make the guarantee with @Sendable
- Protocol
- protocol is abstract type
- Prefer to using inheritance
- enum
Josh's shorthand rule for class vs actor: Use an actor for all of the service level objects in your app (networking, caching, location etc.) but continue to use classes for types that are owned by UI thread objects (ie viewModels) and wherever you need to inherit from Objective C or can guarantee single threaded access or immutability.
2021.05.29
We talked about getting the most out of the WWDC.
- Download the developer app
- Make sure to watch the Platforms state of the Union
- Watch what's new in Swift
We spent most of the meeting working through this article by Paul Hudson:
https://www.hackingwithswift.com/articles/233/whats-new-in-swift-5-5
The newsletter https://iosdevweekly.com mentioned some videos that might also be useful to watch:
https://alejandromp.com/blog/swift-concurrency/
Apple needs to get caught up on graphics technology.
https://www.ign.com/articles/unreal-engine-5-dog-render-10-billion-polygons
2021.05.22
Announcements
-
The new book Expert Swift is out. You can read the first four chapters for free and Ray Fix wrote two of those. Any feedback you have toward the next edition would be useful!
-
Paul Hegarty's famous CS193p iOS Stanford class for 2021 is out. He does an amazing job of teaching SwiftUI from the ground up. Worth watching.
Router Pattern
Tim Colson helped us explore a navigational pattern related someone to coordinators.
https://davidgarywood.com/writing/swiftui-router-pattern/
- Protip: To reset user defaults quickly you can just delete the app in the simulator.
Building C++
Ed was working through some tricky build issues. One issue which we were able to solve was related to ensuring that there one definition of a symbol in C++ so the linker doesn't get duplicates. You must declare things "extern" in shared headers. Also, special care needs to be taken for C:
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif
// C code here
#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endifCoredata, Dependency Injection, Inversion of Dependencies
Josh reworked Apple's sample CoreData project to facade CoreData behind a value and function only interface, sequesting the CoreData specific logic, types and delegates behind a protocol and decoupling the rest of the app from the dependency on Coredata. See last weeks discussiong for dependency inversionf or more details.
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/DatabaseFacade
2021.05.15
Fluent SQLite
In previous weeks we have talked about using a variety of data backends for iOS models. I demonstrated how you can use the Fluent ORM from the Vapor project to back your SwiftUI app. Here is the writeup: https://rayfix.org/2021/05/18/fluent-swiftui.html
Inversion of Dependecies
We discussed the D in SOLID: dependency inversion and how it can we be used to facade your database implementation so that you can swap out the implementation of your caching or storage layer without affecting the rest of your app (ie swap Coredata for Fluent).
https://ducmanhphan.github.io/2020-01-15-Understanding-about-SOLID-part-5/
Transforming a while loop into an asynchronous Publisher
Josh showed how we can take a while loop for a series of asynchronous tasks and reimagine it as a generic recursive asynchrounous function. This is useful for tasks such as making repeated sequential network requests until the response satisfies some predicate.
import PlaygroundSupport
import Combine
extension Publishers {
static func publishLatest<Output, Failure>(
while predicate: @escaping (Output) -> Bool,
make publisherFactory: @escaping (Output?) -> AnyPublisher<Output, Failure>
) -> AnyPublisher<Output, Failure> {
func makeNextPublisher(from output:Output?) -> AnyPublisher<Output, Failure> {
publisherFactory(output).map { result -> AnyPublisher<Output, Failure> in
predicate(result)
? Publishers.Concatenate(
prefix: Just(result).setFailureType(to: Failure.self),
suffix: makeNextPublisher(from: result)
).eraseToAnyPublisher()
: Empty(
completeImmediately: true,
outputType: Output.self,
failureType: Failure.self
).eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
.switchToLatest()
.eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
return makeNextPublisher(from: nil)
}
}
let c = Publishers.publishLatest(
while: { $0 < 3 },
make: { previous in Just(previous.map { $0 + 1 } ?? 0).eraseToAnyPublisher() }
)
.sink(receiveValue: {
print($0)
})2021.05.8
Swift 5.5
We discussed the current status of the Swift 5.5 with many of the proposals approved ahead of WWDC: https://apple.github.io/swift-evolution/
Swift Package index
Ray showed the Swift package index and the apbility to download and test a package in a playground: https://swiftpackageindex.com. He also showed the collections package and the Dequeue: https://github.com/apple/swift-collections
Rendering cell gradients
Josh A showed his project to create a messaging UI framework. We discussed possible ways to render a gradient overlay for the entire scrollview in UIKit and in Swift UI. Josh H suggested using a blend mode on a gradient to tint the cells like this: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/Shimmer/blob/master/Sources/Shimmer/Shimmer.swift
MVC, Diffable DataSources and MVVM in UIKit and SwiftUI
Josh H continued his demo on modern app architecture in UIKit and SwiftUI. We recapped what a basica imperative MVC TableView VC looks like in UIKit, what the analogous declarative version looks like by using DiffableDataSources, Combine and UIAction. We noted that we were able to delete all of the instance variables in the declartive version because all the mutable state is now private to the init function.
We then created a futher refinement by lifting out the busness logic to a SwiftUI inspired viewModel, and saw that we can use the same viewModel to drive both the UIKit and SwiftUI versions of this screen, giving us a single reactive declarative and immutable architecture for both UIKit and SwiftUI that is especially useful for hybrid apps that need to use both UI layers: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/DiffableDataSources
2021.05.1
Storekit
Emil asked about the requirements for decrypting and inspecting the receipt payload for Storekit in app purchases. We discussed that the official Apple solution is to have your server validate the receipts against the Apple servers to avoid a possible man in the middle attack, although you can do this on device if you don't have a server and are willing to ignore Apple's security concerns.
Parsing command line arguments
We looked at the Swift argument parser library. This was developed, among other reasons, to provide argument parsing for the Swift compiler. While most of Swift is written in C++, parts are being re-written now in Swift.
We created a simple SwiftUI app and passed arguments to it. You can find the example, and more information on this blog post:
https://rayfix.org/2021/04/24/swiftui-argument-parser.html
Coordinators
Curits asked about how to perform deeplinking from a local notification in his app. We discussed the MVC architecture and noted that it lacks a separate component for routing. This problem also exists for MVVM applications in SwiftUI where the view tree is a function of the viewmodel state. We discussed the possibility of solving this with a separate Router/Coordinator component that can be imperative for UIKit code and reactive for SwiftUI, allowing for a single unified routing architecture in a mixed app. We looked at how you can handle deeplinks imperatively by handling 3 functions in the app delegate (didLaunch, open url, and didRecieveRemoteNotification) and funneling the results to one function that can inspect the application's keywindow rootViewController to decide how to route the link. We dicussed the possible pitfalls of changing the navigation stack when the user is not logged in, when the user is in the middle of some content creation (typing a message for instance), or when the user does not have permission or is not authenticated. We will explore this concept in the future as part of a broader discussion on modern ios app architecture.
2021.04.24
Product and Rumor Talk
We talked about the new product Apple made. Ray and John pre-ordered AirTags. Ray is excited to buy an M1 iPad when it becomes available.
We discussed the quanta leaks:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/04/21/stolen-quanta-documents-show-macbook-pro-with-sd-card-slot-magsafe
UITextField vs UITextView
Josh notes UITextField is generally easier to work with because it has the target action behavior of UIControl.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uitextview https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uicontrol
Demonstration of Yi's apps
He showed a cool desktop picture app that uses the Unsplash API.
He showed his finance app which compared with big competitors is (1) easy to use (2) protects your privacy (3) is not a subscription model. Asked for market.
Sync solution used http://www.ensembles.io
Feedback
We discussed market positioning and marketing and possibly using a press release as a better value proposition than advertising: http://www.prweb.com.
- Emphasize the angle of user privacy.
- Look at https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/mmm-recommends/
- Localization https://github.com/mac-cain13/R.swift
Josh's picks
Benchmarking Swift
https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/which-programs-are-fastest.html
One language to rule them all?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2yr-3F6PQo
Josh suggested watching this Uncle Bob video where Bob proposes that new programming paradigms are about subtraction and not adding features and that we may have discovered all of the programming paradigms because there is nothing else left to subtract. The most interesting discussion is at the 13:20 mark.
Lots of changes coming in Swift 5.5
https://apple.github.io/swift-evolution/
2021.04.17
New Swift Evolution Proposals, Repos and Tools
We talked about some of the new evolution proposals and repositories available.
Evolution Proposals
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0308-postfix-if-config-expressions.md
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0309-unlock-existential-types-for-all-protocols.md
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0310-effectful-readonly-properties.md
- https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0311-task-locals.md
Swift Repositories
Other repos to think about using:
User Experience Resources
Read the Human Interface Guidelines (HIG). There are also websites that explore different user interfaces
- https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/
- https://dribbble.com/shots/popular/mobile
- https://mobbin.design
Corner Rounding
Mira had a question about label corner rounding. The discovery was that if corner rounding is added to the init of a custom collection view cell it works but if added to layoutSubviews, it does not. It is somewhat a mystery as to why this is the case
Core Data vs ...
Curtis was wonding about https://github.com/groue/GRDB.swift as a wrapper for data. A simpler approach may be to just store everything in a file that is saved to the documents directory.
If you are learning about CoreData you might want to check this out:
Also you might want to read this:
https://davedelong.com/blog/2018/05/09/the-laws-of-core-data/
Josh A. reminded us that parse which is alive and well (and uses Mongo under the hood)
https://docs.parseplatform.org/
Previews for UIKit
Josh created a package that lets you preview UIKit views and view controllers using the SwiftUI preview mechanism.
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/Preview
Table View Data Sources
Ask three questions?
- How does it work? (coding concern)
- Why does it work that way? (software engineering concern)
- Should it work that way? (deeper software engineering concern)
Josh gave a presentation about table view data sources. His first example used standard MVC to show pokeman characters loaded in from a JSON document. It had a searchbar to narrow down search terms. It worked but performed expensive filter work on the main thread, had to have mutable shared state properties, and didn't animate changes.
Next, he used the diffable data source to solve the same problem. This is a more declarative form put everything in the initializer (except for the observing publisher subscription). It applies snapshots as the data source to achieve animation when search is activated. The structures look more like SwiftUI.
Next week he will take this example further and show an MVVM implementation that looks a lot more like SwiftUI. https://github.com/joshuajhomann/DiffableDataSources
2021.04.10
Touch Route
Ed has a new app in the App Store called Touch Route. Several participated in the TestFlight. Time to get it and give him a five star review! :)
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/touchroute/id1559820521
Swift Packages with Binary Frameworks
Ed also gave us a quick tour about how to use frameworks from SwiftPM. Important: you need to convert a .framework to an .xcframework to be usable. The package definition DSL is just Swift code.
We also talked about various Brother printers https://www.brother-usa.com/support/ql820nwb - Brother QL-820NWB
Review of Property Wrappers
We worked through this example:
@propertyWrapper
struct Clamped<Value: Comparable> {
var range: ClosedRange<Value>
private var value: Value
var wrappedValue: Value {
get { value.clamped(to: range) }
set { value = newValue }
}
var projectedValue: Value {
get { value }
set { value = newValue }
}
init(wrappedValue: Value, range: ClosedRange<Value>) {
value = wrappedValue
self.range = range
}
}
extension Comparable {
func clamped(to range: ClosedRange<Self>) -> Self {
min(max(range.lowerBound, self), range.upperBound)
}
}Josh Homann has covered this in previous meetups. https://github.com/joshuajhomann/CustomDynamicProperties
Also, Josh recommends using Snippets in Xcode as a way to expose the entire surface area of a function in one shot.
@propertyWrapper
struct <#Name#> {
private var value: <#Wrapped#>
var wrappedValue: <#Wrapped#> {
get { value }
set { value = newValue }
}
var projectedValue: <#Projected#> {
get { value }
set { value = newValue }
}
init(wrappedValue: <#Wrapped#>) {
value = wrappedValue
}
}A new Swift evolution proposal 0293 has been accepted and will be in Swift 5.5. Expect to see a lot more @ symbols at next WWDC.
2021.04.03
Review of Mutable Value Semantics
Ray did a review of what mutable value semantics are in Swift using the iPad note app to draw with. Languages like Java and Python use reference semantics for performance. Languages like Haskell have value semantics but achieve it through immutability. Swift gets the best of both worlds by using reference semantics privately but then doing copy-on-write to achieve value semantics.
Tim wrote some playground code to work through the ideas:
// Value Semantics
let a = [1,2,3]
// b just "points" to same memory as "a"
let b = a
// c just points to a
var c = a
print(a,b,c) // [1,2,3][1,2,3][1,2,3]
// Standard Swift Types support "Mutable Value Semantics" - i.e. Copy on Write (aka "COW paradigm")
// Uh Oh - this is a var that changes... so COW!
c.append(4)
print(a,b,c) // [1,2,3][1,2,3][1,2,3,4]
// Example with Classes (Person)
class Person {
var name : String
init(name: String) {
self.name = name
}
}
var p1 = Person(name:"Josh1")
let p2 = Person(name:"Josh2")
let p3 = Person(name:"Josh3")
print("p1 unique=\(isKnownUniquelyReferenced(&p1))")
var people : [Person] = [p1, p2, p3]
print(people)
// print("people unique=\(isKnownUniquelyReferenced(&people))")
print("p1 unique=\(isKnownUniquelyReferenced(&p1))")
// let tallPeople = people
// let smartPeople = peopleWe looked at the problem with SwiftUI and CoW types. The property wrappers @State and @Published make a local copy which prevents the copy optimization. Instead, you can use objectWillChange on ObservableObject directly.
https://gist.github.com/rayfix/dc079e527be76f9be4a419ca2896d5ba
Swift on Tap
Tim showed us Apple-like documentation but with examples. https://swiftontap.com/
Frank: Swift on Tap is the work of Alex Fine.
Some SwiftUI resources worth a look:
- https://www.avanderlee.com (Antoine van Der Lee)
- https://kean.blog
Importing a binary framework and vending it from SwiftPM
Ed talked about a problem he is still trying to solve. We think he will need to import the library through a bridging header of a modulemap file.
Rumors and Discussion
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/22/2021-apple-tv-rumors/
Video app pitch
Yi pitched his video app that he is just beginning with.
2021.03.27
John showed the beginning of his app: https://github.com/codger/Guess-Who which he would like to make into an interactive coding exercise. If you'd like to contribute, propose a feature and you can present it during the meetup and crowd source the solution.
Ray demoed an issue with a CowWrapper type where it was causing unexpected allocations. The solution will be presented in the next meeting!
Josh showed a solution to making a UIStackView in UIScrollView scroll only when the content exceeds the scrollView's height, and making the stackview equal the scrollview's height in all other cases. This involves 10 constraints:
- 4 position constraints on the scrollView's
frameLayoutGuideto its parent view to position the scrollview. - 4 position constraints on the stackview to the scrollView's
contentLayoutGuideto position the stackView inside the scrollview - 2 dimension constraints to imply the size of the stackView
- A cross axis (horizontal for a vertical scroll) constraint that constrains the stackView's width to the scrollView's width, causing the scrollView to not scroll horizontally
- An axis constraint (height for a vertical scrollView) that provides a minimum dimension for the stackView's axis that is equal to or greater than the scrollView's scrolling axis. This constraint must not be required (the priority must be less than
.requiredwhich has a rawValue of 1000).
Finally, at least one view in the stack needs to be expandable. In this example it is the spacer view. Expandability is accomplished by setting the contentHuggingPiority of the expandable view(s) to a value lower than all of the other views in the stack for the scrolling axis (vertical).
class ViewController: UIViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let title = UILabel()
title.text = "Title"
let subtitle = UILabel()
subtitle.numberOfLines = 0
subtitle.text = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
let imageView = UIImageView(image: UIImage(systemName: "star.fill") ?? UIImage())
imageView.contentMode = .scaleAspectFill
imageView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 300).isActive = true
let button = UIButton()
button.backgroundColor = .black
button.setTitle("Test", for: .normal)
button.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 50).isActive = true
button.widthAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 100).isActive = true
button.layer.cornerRadius = 8
let spacer = UIView()
spacer.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
spacer.heightAnchor.constraint(greaterThanOrEqualToConstant: 50).isActive = true
spacer.setContentHuggingPriority(.init(rawValue: 0), for: .vertical)
let stack = UIStackView.init(arrangedSubviews: [
title,
imageView,
subtitle,
spacer,
button
])
stack.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
stack.axis = .vertical
stack.alignment = .center
let scrollView = UIScrollView()
scrollView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
scrollView.addSubview(stack)
view.addSubview(scrollView)
NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
scrollView.frameLayoutGuide.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.safeAreaLayoutGuide.topAnchor),
scrollView.frameLayoutGuide.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.safeAreaLayoutGuide.bottomAnchor),
scrollView.frameLayoutGuide.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.safeAreaLayoutGuide.leadingAnchor),
scrollView.frameLayoutGuide.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.safeAreaLayoutGuide.trailingAnchor),
scrollView.contentLayoutGuide.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: stack.topAnchor),
scrollView.contentLayoutGuide.bottomAnchor.constraint(equalTo: stack.bottomAnchor),
scrollView.contentLayoutGuide.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: stack.leadingAnchor),
scrollView.contentLayoutGuide.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: stack.trailingAnchor),
scrollView.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: stack.widthAnchor),
])
let height = scrollView.heightAnchor.constraint(greaterThanOrEqualTo: stack.heightAnchor)
height.priority = .defaultLow
height.isActive = true
}
}2021.03.20
Breakout sessions
Had fun with breakout sessions. I can see how we can use these in the future.
Setting Autolayout Constraints and whitespace
Constraints need to set the xy position and width and height of a view. Sometimes the size has an implicit content size and you don't need to set the width and height. You want to avoid under constraining or specifying conflicting contraints.
How to make whitespace at the bottom?
- Make a constraint >= 1
- Set vertical hugging priority to the lowest possible value (1)
String Performance Cliff
If you load in a string with:
let value = try String(contentsOf: url)You might load a string that is UTF16 or non-contiguous. That causes a 10x slowdown. This might be noticeable if you have a string processing app or a lot of concurrent users on a server app.
There are two functions you might want to be aware of:
value.isContiguousUTF8 // can this string use the fast path algorithms?
value.makeContiguousUTF8() // makes it O(1) to access the storageAlso, there are two overloads: String(contentsOf: url) and String(contentsOf: url, encoding: .utf8) The first does autodetection the second assumes the encoding. Prefer specifying it when you can as it may guarantee contiguous storage in the future.
See https://forums.swift.org/t/confused-by-string-iteration-performance/46723/9
Codable and code synthesis
A lot of forum discussions happening right now with relation to Codable because of the associated type proposal.
We talked about this one: https://forums.swift.org/t/why-does-subclassing-a-codable-class-produce-class-has-no-initializers/23586
Swizzling and associated storage to track view controller leaks
Josh walked through the different types of dispatch available to Swift: static dispatch, virtual table (closely related to witness table) dispatch, and full Objective-C message dispatch. The last is the most flexible to a frightening extent. It allows you to swizzle (replace) system methods like viewDidLoad of UIViewController types. Using assocated storage you can track stuff about the object including an object with a custom deinit.
Code:
extension UIViewController {
final class OnDealloc {
var closure: () -> Void
init(_ closure: @escaping () -> Void) {
self.closure = closure
}
deinit {
closure()
}
}
private static var associatedObjectAddress = String(reflecting: OnDealloc.self)
@objc private func swizzledViewDidLoad() {
let onDealloc = OnDealloc {
print("Dealloc \(Self.self)")
}
objc_setAssociatedObject(self, &Self.associatedObjectAddress, onDealloc, .OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN_NONATOMIC)
print("ViewDidLoad \(Self.self)")
swizzledViewDidLoad() //ViewDidLoad
}
private static let swizzleImplementation: Void = {
let originalSelector = #selector(UIViewController.viewDidLoad)
let swizzledSelector = #selector(UIViewController.swizzledViewDidLoad)
guard let originalMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(UIViewController.self, originalSelector),
let swizzledMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(UIViewController.self, swizzledSelector) else {
return
}
method_exchangeImplementations(originalMethod, swizzledMethod)
}()
static func swizzle() {
_ = swizzleImplementation
}
}2021.03.13
What's new in Swift evolution?
CGFloat <-> Double
Great if this sharp edge were fixed. A good April 1st version of this would be to introduce CGDouble
Actors
https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0306-actors.md
Some chatter about the pattern in general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
It is available in many languages. (I first encountered it a decade ago in C++ Boost asio.)
Alignment Guides
There are many ways of performing the alignment in Swift. We looked at several ways using alignment guides. Here was a basic example we explored.
extension HorizontalAlignment {
enum Custom: AlignmentID {
static func defaultValue(in context: ViewDimensions) -> CGFloat {
context[.leading]
}
}
static var custom: HorizontalAlignment = HorizontalAlignment(Custom.self)
}
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
VStack(alignment: .custom) {
HStack {
Text("Name")
TextField("John J.", text: .constant(""))
.alignmentGuide(.custom) { context in
context[HorizontalAlignment.center]
}
}
HStack {
Text("Address")
TextField("1234 Main Drive", text: .constant(""))
.alignmentGuide(.custom) { context in
context[.leading]
}
}
}.padding()
}
}Adding Measurement Units
The Measurement facility in Foundation lets you add different units of the same dimension in a type safe way. Be careful with temperature, though. If you add C and F together it will convert to the base unit (K) and add those which might not be expected. Stay in the same units to keep the implicit conversion from happening.
import Foundation
let a = Measurement(value: 70, unit: UnitTemperature.fahrenheit)
let b = Measurement(value: 20, unit: UnitTemperature.celsius)
a + b // really hot!
a.converted(to: .kelvin) + b.converted(to: .kelvin) // same as a + b
a + b.converted(to: .fahrenheit) // probably what you meant, not as hotBetter NSAttributedString API with Result Builder
Josh created a cool custom result builder for creating composable NSAttributedString without all of the type loss of its Objective-C / NSDictionary based API.
Package and example project:
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/AttributedStringBuilder
2021.03.06
Demo Time
Caleb and Emily showed a new version of their app. They had some questions about handling multipart posts and general app architecture.
Josh gave us a brief survey of various app architectures.
Is SwiftUI ready for production? The answer depends on the user base you need to support. (They are currently requiring iOS 13 because they are using Combine.)
Some links from Tim Colson
The story about how Uber almost had a disaster when they switched to Swift: https://twitter.com/StanTwinB/status/1336890449861066753?s=20
Push Notifications
What is the state of the art for push notifications?
https://developer.apple.com/notifications/
Many services out there. You probably don't want to roll your own unless you have to.
Network Sniffing
- Postman
- Paw https://paw.cloud
- Charles Proxy
- Wireshark
- RESTed
- Insomnia https://insomnia.rest
Aside: Serial 2 is a great tool for sniffing USB/serial devices on macOS
https://www.decisivetactics.com/products/serial/
LaTeX and MathML
A cool project would be to write a LaTeX parser that rendered using MathML and WKWebView.
Units and Codable
import Foundation
let mile = Measurement(value: 1, unit: UnitLength.miles)
let encoder = JSONEncoder()
let data = try encoder.encode(mile)
print(String(data: data, encoding: .utf8)!)
let decoded = try JSONDecoder().decode(Measurement<UnitLength>.self,
from: data)
print(decoded)
decoded.converted(to: .fathoms)The archive looks like this:
{"value":1,"unit":{"converter":{"constant":0,"coefficient":1609.3440000000001},"symbol":"mi"}}
Capture Lists
Capture lists are a way of extending lifetime. The capture occurs at the point of declaration so be careful about capturing values. They can also be used to break reference cycles, but they tend to be rare. Try to capture the minimum set of things that you need to. If you are doing MVC, you probably don't need to inject in and capture your services. Instead, you can use a singleton. If you are doing MVVM or others you probably need to use the capture list.
Getting Started
We all agree that https://cs193p.sites.stanford.edu is a great course. The prerequisites are OOP, data structures and algorithms but you might be able to fake it even without some of those things.
Swimbols
John demo'ed a cool tool for using symbols that outputs code.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/swimbols/id1525226399
Slack
LA Swift Coders has a Slack channel.
https://join.slack.com/t/swiftcodersla/shared_invite/zt-745saxp2-irO2nTquTwFDHriTmU5JBg
2021.02.27
Discussion
Josh had a link for Ray as a follow up on his mandlebrot plot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJcsL7vyrk&vl=en
John showed a math project manually laying out equations in SwiftUI. Asked if there is another way to do it. Frank suggested MathML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MathML which is supported by WKWebView. Others mentioned LaTeX.
Clarissa had a question on her flipping animation. Josh suggested interactively flipping each card as a function of how far a touch has traveled by using the UIView.transform property: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiview/1622459-transform and then animating the transform back to .identity when the gesture ends. although Josh just realized that this is wrong and you need the y-axis (uiview only rotates about z) so you have to actually use CALayer's transform instead of the view's transform for this particular animation. For instance:
import PlaygroundSupport
import UIKit
final class V: UIViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let square = UIView()
square.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
square.backgroundColor = .red
view.addSubview(square)
NSLayoutConstraint.activate([
square.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerXAnchor),
square.centerYAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerYAnchor),
square.widthAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 100),
square.heightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: square.widthAnchor)
])
let rotation: CABasicAnimation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "transform")
CATransaction.begin()
rotation.duration = 5
rotation.fromValue = CATransform3D()
rotation.toValue = CATransform3DMakeRotation(.pi, 0, 1, 0)
square.layer.add(rotation, forKey: "scale")
CATransaction.commit()
}
}
PlaygroundPage.current.liveView = V()Intro to Measurement
TimC gave a brief intro to Foundation Measurements in an XCode playground. Asked for help with Apple's broken Custmo Unit example. Josh suggested running in Mac Playgrounds app - showed the true error.
//
// Brief intro to Measurements
// Creation, Conversion, Custom
//
import Foundation
// Create a Measurement
var mile = Measurement(value: 1, unit: UnitLength.miles)
// Convert to another unit
var dMiles = mile.converted(to: .meters)
mile.converted(to: .yards)
// Extend UnitLength to include pool-laps conversions:
extension UnitLength {
static let lap50m = UnitLength(symbol: "laps", converter: UnitConverterLinear(coefficient: 50))
static let lap50y = UnitLength(symbol: "laps", converter: UnitConverterLinear(coefficient: 45.72))
static let lap25y = UnitLength(symbol: "laps", converter: UnitConverterLinear(coefficient: 45.72/2))
}
// How many laps
var lapCount = mile.converted(to: UnitLength.lap50m)
// Make Measurement init less verbose
extension Measurement {
init(_ v: Double, _ u: UnitType) {
self.init(value:v, unit:u)
}
}
// Swimmers consider 1650 yards or 1500 meters a "mile"
// These distances are shorter than an actual mile
var mileSwimY = Measurement(1650, UnitLength.yards)
var mileSwimM = Measurement(1500, UnitLength.meters)
mileSwimY.converted(to: .miles)
mileSwimM.converted(to: .miles)
// How many laps do you need to swim in different pools?
// 1500 meters in a 50 meter pool (Olympic) -> 30 laps
mileSwimM.converted(to: .lap50m)
// 1500 meters in a 50 yard pool -> ~33 laps
mileSwimM.converted(to: .lap50y)
// 1500 meters in a 25 yard pool -> ~66 laps
mileSwimM.converted(to: .lap25y)
// Actual Mile in a 25 yard pool -> ~71 laps (Tim swims 72 to end where he started)
mile.converted(to: .lap25y)
/* Create a Custom Dimension
Apple example code for RadioactivityUnits does NOT compile;
after some updates, it compiles, throws a runtime error.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/dimension
class CustomRadioactivityUnit: Dimension {
//init needs converter: argument name
static let becquerel = CustomRadioactivityUnit(symbol: "Bq", UnitConverterLinear(coefficient: 1.0))
static let curie = CustomRadioactivityUnit(symbol: "Ci", UnitConverterLinear(coefficient: 3.7e10))
static let baseUnit = self.becquerel // replace with "becquerel" to compile
}
**THANKS JoshHomann** for suggesting Mac Playgrounds app which shows the run-time error.
Error: Crashing on exception: *** You must override baseUnit in your class
Page_Contents.CustomRadioactivityUnit to define its base unit.
Note -- obviously the static let isn't doing the job, but TimC found below works:
*/
// Working Custom Unit Dimension!
class CustomRadioactivityUnit: Dimension {
static let becquerel = CustomRadioactivityUnit(
symbol: "Bq", converter: UnitConverterLinear(coefficient: 1.0))
static let curie = CustomRadioactivityUnit(
symbol: "Ci", converter: UnitConverterLinear(coefficient: 3.7e10))
override class func baseUnit() -> Self {
becquerel as! Self // expects a *Dimension* as Self
}
}
var rads = Measurement(1, CustomRadioactivityUnit.becquerel)
var radsC = rads.converted(to: .curie)
print("Rads=\(rads) -> curie= \(radsC) ")Intro to @propertyWrappers - JoshH
We looked at the basics of proertyWrappers and their three characteristics: 1) a required wrappedValue, 2) an optional projectedValue 3) an optional init(wrappedValue:). The only thing a propertyWrapper provides is renaming for the wrappedValue (name), the underlying struct (_name) and the projectedValue ($name) it is otherwise entirely equivalent to the unsugared struct, as this playground demonstrates:
import Foundation
import PlaygroundSupport
@propertyWrapper
struct Uppercased {
private var value: String = ""
var wrappedValue: String {
get { value.uppercased() }
set { value = newValue }
}
var projectedValue: String {
value
}
init(wrappedValue: String) {
self.wrappedValue = wrappedValue
}
}
final class Person {
@Uppercased var name = "josh"
var name2 = Uppercased(wrappedValue: "peter")
func output() {
// name.wrappedValue
print(name)
// name
print(_name)
// name.projectedValue
print($name)
print(name2.wrappedValue)
print(name2)
print(name2.projectedValue)
}
}
let p = Person()
p.output()Custom DynamicProperty implementations
We looked at Apple's DynamicProperty documentations and noted that the only required function has a default implmenation and that call of the propertyWrappers that implment the protocol are listed at the bottom of the page: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/dynamicproperty
Josh walked through the code for this project on how to build your own custom DynamicProperty. The readme for the project has more details: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/CustomDynamicProperties
We saw the structs in swift cannot be mutated inside of a function that is not flagged as mutating. We further saw that Apple skirts this restriction with @State by using the nonmutating keyword for its setter, and that we can do the same thing an achieve the same behavior by using a reference type to store our variable: the reference never changes, but the pointee can change. If we want to communicate information about the pointee changing, we can use the ObservedObject protocol.
2021.02.20
Discussion
This is a good system to produce animations made by designers. https://github.com/airbnb/lottie-ios
What are some good SwiftUI starter resources?
- https://www.raywenderlich.com
- Stanford course https://cs193p.sites.stanford.edu
- The landmarks tutorial from Apple https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/swiftui/
- Paul Hudson's 100 days of Swift / SwiftUI
- A new tutorial from Apple https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/app-dev-training
- Newsletter by Matteo Manferdini https://matteomanferdini.com
- Another list of resources: http://bit.ly/get-started-with-swift
Debug session: problem with gestures in a collection view
We did a group debug of Clarissa's code. The tap selector for the tap selector wasn't being called. Josh spoted the problem: the gesture was being added to the cell's root view instead of the contentView. Remember that table view cells and collection view cells have a contentView that you need to add your custom views and gestures to.
Problem with Collection Views in iOS 14.4
Jumping to a particular cell seems to be broken. Mira provided a discussion link:
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/663156?answerId=642133022#642133022
How do you make an app that uses landscape but only in one view
One way is to make a class derived from UIViewController that is a NonRotatingView and overrides supported orientations. All the views that don't rotate derive from that.
How do you make an enable button and a slider
https://gist.github.com/rayfix/11827eaf8acae38a08b2190c0db72cee
We used onAppear and onChange to sync state and a binding.
We hit a disable styling problem. Jo mentioned this:
2021.02.13
Tricks and tips
John shared Xcode tips from 24 Quick Xcode Tipes article by Paul Hudson
Notable shortcuts:
- Command-option-control g - Run the last unit test.
- Command-option / - Automatic doc comment template.
- Command-control-shift A - Author's view (git blame)
M1 Rumors
Bill is interested in M1 rumors, especially this one about a Mac Mini Pro version in space grey!
SwiftUI Composition
Tim Colson presented strategies for SwiftUI Composition, i.e. breaking views down into components. SwiftUI composition exercises were inspired by strategies from articles/code/videos by Joseph Pacheco and Paul Hudson.
The code-along session style was inspired by Tim's year teaching and David Laing's Grand Unified Theory of Documentation (Divio) which itself decomposes documentation into four types. Intent was a hands-on learning oriented tutorial, applying composition techniques to a task reminders view. (Unfortunately, Zoom sharing + Xcode + (2 x 4K monitors) crippled Tim's 2015 MBP 13" i7/16GB. He needs an M1x MBP 14"!
See Tim's GitHub repo has for links and sample code:
https://github.com/timcolson/tut-swiftui-comp -- start with tag v1 git co tags/v1
If interested in working thru the code together, reach out to Tim.
Breakout rooms
We will try this next week.
2021.02.06
Xcode Tricks and Tips
Rainer presented a list of tricks and Tips in Xcode and macOS.
- Click the "jump bar"; then start typing to do a fuzzy match.
- Command click the jump bar to get an alphabetical listing by scope.
- Command-option square brackets to move the entire line of text under the cursor up & down. This also works for partially selected lines of text.
- Define a shortcut in Xcode's key bindings to delete the line under the cursor (or partially selected lines): Command-Backsapce (Pay attention to collisions with system shortcuts
⚠️ . - Control-left/right arrow to move from captial to capital in CamelCase words
- Option-left/right arrows to move to word boundaries, command-left/right arrows to go to head and tail of the line. Hold SHIFT to also select. (Works also in all Apple text editors, i.e. TextEdit & Pages)
- Select text, Command-K to add a URL/web link in Apple text editors.
- Control-Command left/right arrows to go back & forth in file 'browser' history (Shout-out to Caleb!)
- Command Shift J reveals where a file is located in the file navigator.
- Command Shift A exposes actions on a selected piece of text
- Comment
// MARK: - Notecreates a note in the jump bar. AlsoFIXME:andTODO:. The colon makes it show up in the list of jump bar items, and the-makes a horizontal divider line in the menu. - Command-option square brackets moves a line or a group of lines up and down.
- Multi-cursor support: Control-Shift-click or arrow up/down
- Click the blue 'change' ribbon to see an action menu. Command-click to automatically show/hide the changes
Other tricks:
xcconfig
Frank introduced us to the world of xcconfig files. You can specify these files to use in your build. They handle comments, key values such as:
MY_SETTING = "this is debug mode"
- You can cut and past from the build configuration of Xcode.
- It understands include files to support common settings.
- You can use
include?for optional includes used for local configuration not checked into version control.
- Xcode Build Configuration Files article by Mattt @ NSHipster - reference article with info similar to what Frank shared
SHA256
Ray demo'ed SHA256 hash generation. Using CryptoKit makes it easy.
import UIKit
import CryptoKit
var str = "Hello, playground!"
let data = str.data(using: .utf8)!
let digest = SHA256.hash(data: data)
print(String(describing: digest))
extension Digest {
var hexString: String {
map { String(format: "%02x", $0) }.joined()
}
}
let d2 = SHA512.hash(data: data)
SHA512.byteCount
print(digest.hexString)
print(d2.hexString)URL Publishing Chain Revisited
By request, Josh walked us step-by-step thru the Combine URL publishing chain in his TeslaOwnerAPI.swift
2021.01.30
Josh presented his Tesla Owner app. https://github.com/joshuajhomann/tesla
(Note as of 2021.02-13 app is broken due to Tesla changing the authentication process; however, the concepts are still notable!)
FYI - Josh presenting at SwiftLA meetup - Creation of Local Packages
Some high level notes:
- Uses a Shared URL session
- Models data quickly with Quicktype.io
- Maps generic Errors to specific server error types
- Returns
We looked at making a struct to encapsulate the unique information about an endpoint:
struct EndPoint {
enum HTTPMethod: String {
case post = "POST", get = "GET"
}
enum Parameters {
case url([String: String]), body(Data)
}
var path: String
var method: HTTPMethod
var parameters: Parameters? = nil
var requiresAuthentication = true
var headers: [String: String] = Self.jsonHeaders
}
...
static func getVehicleData(id: Int) -> Self {
.init(path: "/api/1/vehicles/\(id)/vehicle_data", method: .get)
}Noted that Moya is a more robust general solution; however, a lot can be done with plain URLSessions, as Josh expertly demo'd.
We discussed using quicktype.io to code gen conformance to Codable and making server errors Codable:
public struct ErrorMessage: Codable {
public var message: String
public enum CodingKeys: String, CodingKey {
case message = "error"
}
}We discussed the value of strongly typed errors and name shadowing Swift.Error:
public enum Error: Swift.Error {
case invalidURL, networkError(Swift.Error), decodingError(Swift.Error), unauthenticated, server(message: String)
public var message: String {
switch self {
case let .server(message): return message
case let .networkError(error): return error.localizedDescription
case let .decodingError(error): return error.localizedDescription
case .invalidURL: return "Invalid URL"
case .unauthenticated: return "Unauthenticated"
}
}
public var isVehicleUnavailableError: Bool {
if case let .server(message) = self {
return message.starts(with: "vehicle unavailable")
}
return false
}
}We building a URL request from URLComponents, URLQueryItems and body data:
private func makeRequest(from endPoint: EndPoint) throws -> URLRequest {
var components = URLComponents()
components.scheme = Constant.scheme
components.host = Constant.host
components.path = endPoint.path
if case let .url(parameters) = endPoint.parameters {
components.queryItems = parameters.map { key, value in
.init(name: key, value: value)
}
}
guard let url = components.url else {
throw Error.invalidURL
}
var request = URLRequest(url: url)
request.httpMethod = endPoint.method.rawValue
endPoint.headers.forEach { key, value in
request.setValue(value, forHTTPHeaderField: key)
}
if case let .body(data) = endPoint.parameters {
print(String(data: data, encoding: .utf8))
request.httpBody = data
}
return request
}We discussed a generic request function:
private func request<SomeDecodable: Decodable, Output>(
_ decoded: SomeDecodable.Type,
from endPoint: EndPoint,
transform: @escaping (SomeDecodable) -> Output
) -> AnyPublisher<Output, Error> {
guard var request = try? makeRequest(from: endPoint) else {
return Fail(error: .invalidURL).eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
if endPoint.requiresAuthentication {
guard let token = token?.accessToken else {
return Fail(error: .unauthenticated).eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
EndPoint.authenticatedHeaders(from: token).forEach { key, value in
request.addValue(value, forHTTPHeaderField: key)
}
}
return URLSession
.shared
.dataTaskPublisher(for: request)
.mapError(Error.networkError(_:))
.map(\.data)
.handleEvents(receiveOutput: { data in
print(endPoint.path)
print(String(data: data, encoding: .utf8) ?? "")
}, receiveCompletion: { completion in
switch completion {
case .finished: return
case let .failure(error):
print(endPoint.path)
print("ERROR:\(error.localizedDescription)")
}
})
.decode(type: Either<SomeDecodable, ErrorMessage>.self, decoder: Self.jsonDecoder)
.mapError(Error.decodingError(_:))
.map { either -> AnyPublisher<SomeDecodable, Error> in
switch either {
case let .left(someDecodable): return Just(someDecodable).setFailureType(to: Error.self).eraseToAnyPublisher()
case let .right(errorMessage): return Fail(error: Error.server(message: errorMessage.message)).eraseToAnyPublisher()
}
}
.switchToLatest()
.map(transform)
.eraseToAnyPublisher()
}We discussed :
- how side effects should be handled by
handleEvents - errors can be made strongly typed with
mapError. - using a generic
Eitherenum to decode heterogenous types from our response (either the decodable type we are looking for or a server error):
enum Either<Left, Right> {
case left(Left), right(Right)
}
extension Either: Decodable where Left: Decodable, Right: Decodable {
init(from decoder: Decoder) throws {
let container = try decoder.singleValueContainer()
if let value = try? container.decode(Left.self) {
self = .left(value)
} else if let value = try? container.decode(Right.self) {
self = .right(value)
} else {
throw DecodingError.typeMismatch(Self.self, DecodingError.Context(codingPath: decoder.codingPath, debugDescription: "Wrong type for \(String(describing:Self.self))"))
}
}
}2021.01.23
Proxy
Discussed network security and SSL pinning. Potential topic for future meetup. You can try it out:
Swift Fiddle
It let's you play with the Swift compiler (and different versions) online.
Enums
We talked about how equality checking for enums do not consider argument labels. The same thing goes for comparison and hash values coming in a future version of Swift when [tuples will become Equatable, Comparable and Hashable[(https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/main/proposals/0283-tuples-are-equatable-comparable-hashable.md) if all of the element types are Equatable, Comparable and Hashable respectively.
Regarding comparison of floating point, question about zero was raised. IEEE-754 specifies a sign bit so there are multiple representations of zero.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/double/1538731-iszero
Your Demo Here
If you have a trick or tip and want to show the group, remember to write it down.
https://www.dunebook.com/best-xcode-themes/ - https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode - font for terminal and Xcode that includes ligatures for common two-char symbols How to draw bounding boxes with SwiftUI (Medium) - useful for scanning-related project ideas, ex: draw a box around a QR code in a video capture.
Demo SwiftUI Picker
We explored Picker with a simple example.
https://gist.github.com/rayfix/ed02927bce0d645911b578edf5379baf
Names in the app store
Needs to be a real name or company name (LLC, Corporation, etc). Apple doesn't allow DBAs.
https://developer.apple.com/support/enrollment/
Demo Exquisite Corpse
Got a quick demo of a game that Jo is building. And talked about debugging Firebase cloud functions. It is taking minutes to spin up an instance and something seems wrong.
2021.01.18
Discussion of Corporate Dev Account vs Personal Account
Be careful of LLC (with a single person) or even a corporation. If you don't do everything to the letter, chances are the corporate veil can be pierced. When you are just starting out, it is probably easiest to use a personal account. While there was agreement that it can be changed later there was some disagreement about how hard it is to do.
Emil's TikTok App Tutorial Recommendation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71-l3Ndf6Ug
iCloud sync
What folder should you use to sync with?
- Library - saved, not directly accessible
- Document - save, user access
- Cache - purgeable not directly accessible
Sync is surprisingly hard so it makes sense to use a third party library. Several exist:
- iCloud https://developer.apple.com/icloud/cloudkit/
- Realm https://realm.io
- Apollo for GraphQL https://www.apollographql.com/docs/ios/
- Google Firebase https://firebase.google.com
- Parse
Refactoring to Combine
Emily gave us a presentation on Caleb and her experience refactoring to Combine.
- The code is nicer than nested callbacks.
- Discussion on weak captures to prevent extension of lifetime (capture self, or just capture exactly what is needed in the callback closure).
- How can the number of error states be reduced?
Josh reminded us of a previous project that abstracts loading state and error / empty response handling.
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/ShimmeringLoadingState
Josh also recommends a single access point for doing requests. Link TBD. (Next week?)
Proposal for Visualization Toolkit
The idea is to have a library to allow you to read in a CSV file and then render as a plot.
Can we make something comparable to D3 https://d3js.org
Tesla Watch App: Modules
Josh showed an in-progress watch app that uses the Tesla API to unlock the car. We will look at it in greater detail in a future meetup.
This week he showed how to factor out watch and iOS code into a common Swift Package Manager module.
2021.01.09
We discussed the new asynchronous sequence proposal
We discussed reduce (fold) and its inverse (unfold) sequence https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/2011998-sequence
let a = (0..<20).reduce(0, +)
print(a)
let b = sequence(state: (total: a, counter: 0)) { state -> Int? in
guard state.total > 0 else { return nil }
state.total -= state.counter
defer { state.counter += 1}
return state.counter
}
print(Array(b))We then explored the limitations of sequence ie (its inability to remove a element once its been produced) and derived a new unfold operator:
@discardableResult func unfold<State>(into value: State, next: @escaping (inout State) -> State?) -> State {
var localState = value
var unfolded = sequence(state: localState) { _ -> State? in
next(&localState)
}
while unfolded.next() != nil { }
return localState
}and we used it to replace an imperative version of reversi:
private func flipsForAdding(_ targetColor: Piece.Color, at coordinate: Coordinate) -> [Coordinate] {
guard coordinate.isValidForBoard && board[coordinate].color == nil else { return [] }
var total = [Coordinate]()
for offset in Constant.adjacentOffsets {
var subtotal = [Coordinate]()
var next = coordinate + offset
while next.isValidForBoard {
guard let color = board[next].color else {
subtotal.removeAll()
break
}
if color == targetColor {
break
}
subtotal.append(next)
next = next + offset
}
total.append(contentsOf: subtotal)
}
return total
}with a functional version:
private func flipsForAdding(_ targetColor: Piece.Color, at coordinate: Coordinate) -> [Coordinate] {
guard coordinate.isValidForBoard && board[coordinate].color == nil else { return [] }
return Constant.adjacentOffsets.flatMap { [board] offset -> [Coordinate] in
unfold(into: (coordinate: coordinate, accumulated: [Coordinate]())) { [board] state in
state.coordinate = state.coordinate + offset
guard state.coordinate.isValidForBoard, let color = board[state.coordinate].color else {
state.accumulated.removeAll()
return nil
}
if color == targetColor {
return nil
}
state.accumulated.append(state.coordinate)
return state
}
.accumulated
}
}Full project: https://github.com/joshuajhomann/Reversi-SwiftUI-Animation
2021.01.02
Happy New Year!
Josh created an animated SwiftUI RingChart view that he plans to integrate into the Tides app.
https://github.com/joshuajhomann/RingChart
