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Swift Around the Web
Swift makes it into top 10 most popular programming languages; ‘expected not to rise further’
Good thing Swift is open source and on Linux 😅
"The installed base of Objective-C code is quite large. New applications are written in Swift, whereas old apps that are written in Objective-C are not actively migrated to Swift. This is also what we observe at customer sites. Since Swift is mainly intended to write applications in Apple’s ecosystem, it is expected that it won’t rise much further."
A Quick Look at Semaphores in Swift 🚦
Great write-up on how to use DispatchSemaphore with Swift & GCD. I didn't even know about it! Make sure to check out the awesome Semaphore Playground for more fun!
Coding
The best hardware to build with Swift is not what you might think
Well, apparently the most expensive Apple machine != fastest Swift compilation times (in fact, it's the slowest right now 😬). I'm sure Apple will fix this bug, but considering the hardware side of iOS development is definitely not something I think about enough. Good points and benchmarking tips!
System Level Breakpoints in Swift
Debugging is one of the most important skills for a programmer of any language. Here are some vodoo tips for leveling up your Swift debugging skills, especially when it comes to debugging at the CocoaTouch level... unfortunately, the tips include knowing basic Objective-C. Hopefully this will become simpler in the future.
Other Cool Stuff
Meet Japan’s Kumamon, the bear who earns billions
This is basically an Open Source bear that many are forking and making millions from! I personally donated money to this Kumamon charity box! Also, a fascinating look at how to make things cute 👶 - applies to apps and logos!
Swift Evolution
Swift Archival & Serialization
"It aims to provide a more type-safe solution for serializing to external formats, such as JSON and plist"
This is currently awaiting review, but it would be great to have a built-in JSON parser in Swift 🙏
Swift Code
- GIOVANNI - A Gameboy Emulator for the Apple Watch
- Marathon - Marathon makes it easy to write, run and manage your Swift scripts
- spruce-ios - Swift library for choreographing animations on the screen.
- CardSlider - Innovative twist to Tinder cards for iOS.
- Transition - Easy interactive interruptible custom ViewController transitions
- ReverseExtension - UITableView extension that enabled to insert cell from bottom of tableView.
Other Platforms
SCADE
Hello Xamarin for Swift! Super interesting stuff. You can now "easily" deploy the same Swift codebase for both Android and iOS. One big issue is that you'd have to use their special IDE... but there's been a lot of complaints about Xcode and Swift, so maybe it's not a bad thing... Check out the full assessment from someone who's tried it here.
Kitura/iOS: Running a Web Server on your iPhone
Amazing future of Swift-based iOS apps 👏👏👏
Note that several databases can run on iOS, for example, SQLite or IBM Cloudant or Couchbase. By using a mobile embedded database, you can have a full-fledged web server inside your iOS app. Your app may opt to fall back on the embedded web server when it is disconnected from the network. The client-side part could communicate with your local server through a localhost URL. The networking code of the iOS app could remain untouched; only the address of the server will be replaced.
Swift Thoughts
I thought it was photoshopped when this was tweeted, but when I sent a large 🏎 emoji to someone the other day, I saw it! The Swift logo is in fact there!
Swift all the things!