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.
News
App Store Improvements
If you haven’t seen it already, this week has seen great news on the App Store front, with Apple announcing an ongoing process to evaluate apps within the app store and remove those apps that either no longer function or have been abandoned. Along with shortening app titles to a maximum of 50 characters to avoid authors influencing search results and a new version of the App Store Review Guidelines, these changes can only be a good thing for the app store and for developers publishing their apps through it.
apple.com
Code
A (mostly) Comprehensive List of Swift 3.0 and 2.3 Changes
With Swift 3.0 on it’s way, there are many changes to the language that are worth being aware of. This article from @WhatsASoftware provides a pretty comprehensive run-down and also provides some good tips on deciding how and when to upgrade your code bases.
buildingvts.com
Exploring Xcode’s Brand New Core Data Template
WWDC brought a number of changes to the Core Data Framework for iOS 10 including performance improvements and some simplification when it comes to setting up the stack. In support of these changes, Xcode 8 is also sporting a new Core Data project template. In this article, @_bartjacobs investigates what’s on offer.
cocoacasts.com
Strings in Swift 3
I while ago, I wrote a fairly comprehensive rundown of Swift Strings but I haven’t had a chance to update things and Swift 3.0 brings a number of changes. If you’re eager for the latest view of Strings in Swift, this article from @olebegemann is worth a read.
oleb.net
Tools
Learning Git Branching
If you haven’t worked as part of a large development team before, using git beyond the simple trio of fetch, pull, commit, push may be a bit of a mystery. If you’re looking to improve your git foo, then this site @petermcottle might be just what you’re looking for.
Libraries
ImagePicker
ImagePicker is a all-in-one solution for you’re camera app from @hyperoslo. Providing a flexible alternative to UIKit’s UIImagePickerController, Image Picker allows selection of photos from the photo library as well as taking pictures using the camera.
github.com
Eureka
Building forms on iOS has never been easy but Eureka from @xmartlabs is here to help. Relying heavily on operator overloading, it provides a simpler way of defining different types of row and section for your tableview form whilst providing a range of callbacks on form changes.
github.com
Server-Side Swift
Benchmarks of the Top Server-Side Swift Frameworks vs Node.js
Since it’s release into the open-source community, Swift development on the server-side has been progressing rapidly. A testament to this progress is this article from @rymcol that examines the relative performance of the top server-side Swift frameworks vs Node.js.
medium.com
Videos
Becoming a Better Engineering Through Writing
Over the last year, I’ve been trying to make a concerted effort to write more articles on my blog. This has been partly as a way of learning new things and partly as a way of giving back to the community. To this end, this talk from @kristinathai reinforced this idea, laying out the benefits that writing more can bring.
realm.io
Type Erasure Magic
In this talk, @allonsykraken brings two of Swift’s most powerful features, protocols and generics, under his spell by showing how to get them to play nicely within a real-world application. Interesting talk.
realm.io
Other
7 Good Developer Habits
Whether you’ve been writing mac and iOS software years or your just getting started, the Apple development landscape is constantly changing and we’re always learning new things. To help with this, Gabriel Nadel has 7 great tips to propel you on your journey.
medium.com
Comment
Welcome to another week of Swift Developments! Despite a manic week last week with a new project, it’s a slightly slower pace this week with a few days attending @iOSDevUK and some time meeting a whole bunch of new people from around the community! If I combine that with the promise of new goodies from tomorrows Apple Event it promises to be a great week for me! I hope yours is the same!