Swift Developments is a hand-curated newsletter containing a weekly selection of the best links, videos, tools and tutorials for people interested in designing and developing their own apps using Swift.
Business
It’s not you. Incomplete contract theory explains your software struggles.
It’s likely you’ve been there. A wooley specification, endless meetings to figure out what the client *really* wants and clients that want an ever-increasing number of features without a corresponding increase in either the timescales or the budget. But why is it that situations like these arise all too often? @bendixso takes a look at contract theory and tries to answer the question of whether we can setup software contracts in a better way.
medium.com
Design
iOS Architecture: A State Container Based Approach
App architectures can be a contentious topic and sometimes causes fierce debate about which architectures is ‘best’. However, realisticly *every* architecture has its own strengths and weaknesses and fit some situations better than others. In this article, @luisrecuenco provides a nice summary of some of the most popular app architectures in use today and introduces a state container approach that he and his colleagues have been using at Jobandtalent.
jobandtalent.engineering
Xcode: Who’s to Blame
A well written article from @jamesdempsey highlighting the importance, and the impact, that the words you choose in your user interfaces and tools can have. It’s something to think about for your next project.
jamesdempsey.net
Swift
Swift 4.1 Release Process
With Swift 4.0 now released into the wild, @tkremenek has been laying out the goals and release process for Swift 4.1. Worth keeping an eye on.
swift.org
Moving Safety into Types
An nice example from @jemmons on how to stop throwing functions leaking their abstractions up into the calling code. Nice idea.
figure.ink
Tools
XcodeWay
XcodeWay by @onmyway133 is an Xcode editor extension that adds a number of useful shortcuts to open various project related folders such as the Derived Data and Archive folders. Useful timesaver.
github.com
Libraries
Getting Started with Reusable Frameworks for iOS Development
Frameworks – they’re everywhere and we use them in nearly every Swift and iOS app that we write but have you ever created one or your own? In this article @_alecoconnor provides a step-by-step tutorial to show you how.
medium.com
ScreenType
A simple way to distinguish between different iOS screen types by maxsteinapps.
Cards
Cards by @PaoloCuscela brings the iOS 11 App Store card view to Xcode.
github.com
DrawerKit
DrawerKit, by @babylonhealth, is a custom view controller presentation that mimicks the lower draw behaviour from Apple’s Maps app.
github.com
Videos
Taming Touches and Taps
In this talk from Playgrounds Conference 201§7, @b3ll talks all things touch, looking at the huge changes touch-based interfaces have introduced in the last 10 years and discussing some of the paradigms that designing for touch have introduced.
skilled.io
Creating Rich Custom UI Notifications
In this talk from Try! Swift, @thedevme looks at some of the new features from iOS 11 and explains how to leverage the power of custom UI notifications to create engaging and unique experiences for your users.
realm.io
Understanding RxSwift using RxTests
@ynzc provides a gentle introduction to RxSwift, why and how you would use it, and explores how to improve the quality and your understanding of your code using RxTests. Great talk if you’re just getting started with RxSwift.
realm.io
Other
Open Sourcing Swift Code
If you’re looking to get started with open source software and publish your first Swift open-source project, @johnsundell has some great tips and tricks to help you along the way.
swiftbysundell.com
Comment
Another week and another great set of links, videos and tutorials! Only a few days now until iPhone X pre-orders open and I’ve decided to upgrade this time. I’m hoping it’s going to be a nice upgrade from my current iPhone 6S+ and the white lines it’s been exhibiting on the right-hand side of the screen for the last few months! Now if we could iron out some of the issues in iOS 11 everything would be great! ? Have a good week and enjoy the links.