DocC and SPM need some love and attention from Apple

February 20, 20251215 words, posted in review and swift

Apple’s DocC project and the Swift Package Manager have been missing pretty crucial features for years now. It’s time that Apple gave them some love and attention.

Saga... but in Python? Or TypeScript?

February 05, 20252297 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

What would Saga look like if it were written in Python or TypeScript, rather than in Swift? Is it worth the effort to port Saga to another language?

Looking back at four years of Saga

January 26, 20251379 words, posted in open source, review, saga and swift

I started building Saga, my own static site generator written in Swift, four years ago. Let’s look at the state of the project.

Saga 1.0.0 has been released

December 12, 2021183 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

About ten months ago I wrote that I was confident that the API of Saga wasn't going to change a lot anymore, and that I'd release 1.0.0. Well, it's taken a little bit longer than I expected back then, but 1.0.0 has finally been released!

Vapor 4 versus Django REST Framework

August 26, 20213847 words, posted in django, python, review and swift

Over two years ago I wrote an article where I compared Vapor 3 to Django REST Framework. It's time for a rematch with Vapor 4.

My one big complaint working with Vapor 4

July 17, 2021805 words, posted in review and swift

I'm trying out Vapor 4 for a side project, and one thing that I am constantly running into is the amount of boilerplate and copy-pasted code. Are there no better solutions for this?

Mentee Question 5: What's the deal with coordinators?

March 10, 20211768 words, posted in faq, iOS and swift

A few weeks while ago in my how to get started article I mentioned coordinators in the “What architecture should I use?” section, and how they allow you to decouple your view controllers from one another, and improve the way you can test your code....

Mentee Question 4: When to use PassthroughSubject and CurrentValueSubject?

February 25, 2021606 words, posted in combine, faq, iOS and swift

That’s a great question! And actually one I asked myself too, when I just got started with Combine. Let’s first explain what PassthroughSubject and CurrentValueSubject are though. Subjects are a kind of publisher that you can subscribe to, but can...

Mentee Question 3: How to know when multiple publishers completed?

February 22, 2021494 words, posted in combine, faq, iOS and swift

In JavaScript-world, it's really easy to know when multiple promises completed: just use Promise.all. How do you do the same thing in Combine?

A review of Markdown parsers for Swift

February 17, 20212580 words, posted in review, saga and swift

A hugely important part of any static site generator is of course the parsing of Markdown content. The default parser for Saga is Parsley, a custom wrapper around a cmark fork. While I am generally quite happy with it, there are some problems.

Building my own static site generator, part 7: updates & the road to 1.0.0

February 13, 20211086 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

In the past few days I’ve made some pretty substantial improvements to Saga, to make it work for me and my website, which is now built using Saga.

Building my own static site generator, part 6: replacing SwiftMarkdown

February 09, 2021204 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

I've already replaced my own SwiftMarkdown package...

Building my own static site generator, part 5: replacing Ink and Splash

February 08, 2021361 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

I've replaced the Ink and Splash dependencies with my own SwiftMarkdown package.

Building my own static site generator, part 4: a complete redesign

February 03, 2021881 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

An unexpectedly quick fourth article about Saga, after a complete redesign of the API.

Building my own static site generator, part 3: thoughts so far

February 02, 20211454 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

In the third and final part of this series about Saga I'm looking at the pros and cons of the current system and what I might want to change.

Building my own static site generator, part 2: API design

January 31, 20211475 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

Part 2, where I'm looking back at the current API of Saga.

Building my own static site generator, part 1: inspiration & goals

January 30, 20211237 words, posted in open source, saga and swift

In part 1 of a series of articles I'm looking at the inspiration behind my static site generator Saga, now available on Github.

Swift generics and arrays

January 27, 2021675 words, posted in saga and swift

I’m in the very early stages of building my own static site generator in Swift. I want the library to provide a basic Page type, that the user can then extend with custom metadata, and I need to be able to put Pages with different kinds of metadata...

Looking at the static site generator Publish

January 22, 20211526 words, posted in review and swift

I'm taking a look at the static site generator Publish, written in Swift.

Mentee Question 2: How to get started

January 21, 2021981 words, posted in faq, iOS and swift

Resources for learning Swift and UIKit, what to build first, opinions on Unit Testing, and more.

Mentee Question 1: UIKit or SwiftUI

January 20, 2021718 words, posted in faq, iOS and swift

My take on the very common question "What should I learn or focus on? UIKit or SwiftUI?"

Book review: Thinking in SwiftUI

September 19, 20201151 words, posted in iOS, review and swift

A while ago I asked on Twitter which Swift-related book I should review next, and overwhelmingly Thinking in SwiftUI by the objc.io guys was chosen. An excellent choice!

Exploring two-way databinding solutions in UIKit

July 10, 20201142 words, posted in combine, iOS and swift

With SwiftUI we have the @Binding property wrapper that makes it really easy to create a two-way databinding between a form field and a model, but in the UIKit world it's slightly less easy. Let's explore some solutions.

Book review: Practical Combine

June 29, 2020752 words, posted in combine, iOS, review and swift

It's almost exactly 10 years since I wrote my last book review. Time flies! Also, it makes me realize that the way I've been learning has changed dramatically. I am much more guided by autocomplete and documentation within Xcode, and in-depth articles and videos about one particular topic, instead of reading books.

A review of SwiftUI problems

June 21, 2020994 words, posted in iOS, review and swift

I've been working with SwiftUI for almost half a year now, and in that time I've learned a lot. I love a lot about it, but there are also so many bugs and issues that need workarounds that it's kind of maddening.

Connecting Storekit to Firestore via Cloud Functions and webhooks

June 15, 2020998 words, posted in firebase, iOS and swift

I've recently added subscriptions to my Critical Notes iOS app, using Apple's StoreKit. Here is how I hooked it all up to Firestore including server-side receipt validation.

Vapor 3 versus Django REST Framework

April 14, 20192908 words, posted in django, python, review and swift

A little while ago I wrote about starting a new side project, where I was using Vapor 3 to build the backend. My initial impressions were extremely positive, but I ended up running into a few issues that made working with the framework a little bit...

Struggles with Vapor 3

March 20, 20191214 words, posted in swift

I am working on my very first “real” side project since 2006! Not counting a bunch of open source projects I started and maintained since 2006, no, I mean a real user-facing project with a backend, website, iOS app, the whole shebang. It’s been a...

Built in Swift using Saga (source).

RSS | Mastodon | Bluesky