Erica Sadun

Where technology meets something or other

Archive for February, 2017

A few most favored Xcode text preferences

Line numbers. Seriously, how does anyone work without line numbers? They add context and reference for conversations and screen shots, especially in playgrounds. Text Editing > Editing > Show, Line Numbers

Trailing space trimming. Tidiness is godliness. Text Editing > Editing > While editing, Automatically trim trailing whitespace.  (I’ve never bothered with “Including whitespace-only lines” and vaguely suspect it would mess with indentation levels for braced scoping.)

Keyword highlights. I like the built-in highlighting feature that shows corresponding symbols after a short delay.  It’s a subtle cue that emphasizes “where else do I use this?” without having to enter “edit all in scope mode”. Text Editing > Editing > Highlight instances of selected symbol. I use a delay of 0.25 seconds, but I could imagine lengthening that so the highlights don’t appear until I’ve focused longer on a particular symbol.

Spaces. Need I say more? Text Editing > Indentation > Prefer indent using, Spaces. I’m an unabashed 4denterist. My tabs indent “in leading whitespace”. I’m not saying 2denting is bad or wrong but man can it be hard to read and interpret as visual columns. (“Would you like a pamphlet on how 4denting can save your eyes?”)

What about you? What is special about the way you’ve set up Text Editing preferences?

Xcode Tricks: Adding Keyboard Shortcuts

One of the great things about Xcode is that you can add custom keyboard shortcuts for just about any command. Two favorites enable me to toggle playground markup on and off and to run a playground on demand.

Adding shortcuts lets me run these common tasks without lifting my hands from the keyboard and selecting items from a menu. It’s a big time saver.

You establish shortcuts using Xcode > Preferences > Key Bindings.  Search for the command-name using the field at the top-right, then double click in the key field and type the key (or key-chord) you want to use.

Click away from the field after entering your selection. Don’t press return or Xcode interprets that as your requested key entry.

A red exclamation point indicates binding conflicts:

Click the red icon to jump to the Conflicts tab, which lists all keybinding issues:

Red conflicts indicate unresolvable overlaps. Yellow conflicts mean that keyboard shortcuts established in System Preferences may override the built-in bindings.

Activate the edit field by double clicking. Either replace the key binding or click the small gray circle with a minus at the right to remove the assigned key. Once resolved, conflict items leave the list.

The Customized tab list all user-adjusted key bindings. This tab enables you to review your changes in one place.

This screenshot shows both the custom F8 binding for “Execute Playground” and the customization for “Step Out” on the debug menu, which normally uses F8. I removed that to resolve the overlap, preferring F8 for playgrounds.

To revert changes, select one or more items you’ve customized and click Delete. If you want to try this out, it’s safe. Deleting key binding customizations uses Xcode’s undo stack. You can undo your reversion to recover any customization you may have accidentally removed.

Swift 4: Release Process and Phase 2

Release Process

The Swift 4 release process targets Fall 2017:

Swift 4 is a major release that is intended to be completed in the fall of 2017. It pivots around providing source stability for Swift 3 code while implementing essential feature work needed to achieve binary stability in the language. It will contain significant enhancements to the core language and Standard Library, especially in the generics system and a revamp of the String type. More details can be found on the Swift Evolution page.

Swift 4 Phase 2

The Swift 4 two-stage release plan was established in July 2016: focusing on essentials and ABI stability.  Swift  4 only focuses on Phase 1 at this time. Stage 2 starts now.

All design work and discussion for stage 2 extends to April 1, 2017. The intent is to timebox discussion to provide adequate time for the actual implementation of accepted proposals.

Deferred ABI and Status Updates

Ted Kremenek writes,

Since July, we now have a much better understanding now of how to achieve ABI stability, with an ABI Manifesto https://github.com/apple/swift/blob/master/docs/ABIStabilityManifesto.md detailing the list of all language/implementation work that is needed to achieve ABI stability. We have made substantial progress in that work during stage 1, but much remains to be done. Once Swift achieves ABI stability the ABI can be extended, but not changed. Thus the cost of locking down an ABI too early is quite high.

Deferring ABI stability enables Swift to focus on language fundamentals. An ABI dashboard will be wired up from the Swift Evolution Github repository. This will present a table of remaining ABI tasks and display their status.

Foundation

Swift Foundation API improvements are folded under the phase 2 umbrella, “to continue the goal of making the Cocoa SDK work seamlessly in Swift. Details on the specific goals will be provided as we get started on Swift 4 stage 2.”

Unimplemented Proposals

The following accepted proposals are rolled forward into Swift 4 Stage 2:

  • SE-0104 “Protocol-oriented Integers”: This proposal requires revision and another round of review based on other changes that have been made to the language and standard library since acceptance.
  • SE-0075 “Adding a Build Configuration Import Test”: This is (still) an additive proposal and no other changes affect this proposal. It will be carried forward and considered accepted for Swift 4.
  • SE-0042 “Flattening the function type of unapplied method references”: This proposal requires another round of review. This is a significant source-breaking change, and the bar for such source-breaking changes is considerably higher in Swift 4 than it was in Swift 3.
  • SE-0068 “Expanding Swift Self to class members and value types”: This is (still) an additive proposal and no other changes affect this proposal. It will be carried forward and considered accepted for Swift 4.

Links

That API thing

Today, Nikita Voloboev was trying to wrap his head around how this whole Cocoa/Cocoa Touch API thing worked. The conversation started when he asked, “Is UIKit part of Cocoa?” The docs weren’t really giving him an idea of how it all worked. After a few minutes back and forth, he derived this concept using the tools at mindnode.com:

It was a good first guesstimate even though it doesn’t exactly capture Apple’s API design. I hopped into Preview and sketched out this diagram instead. (And yes, some day I may write a book about all the cool things you can do for free in Preview):

I explained how the API families shared certain frameworks but that the frameworks weren’t uniformly implemented across all the platforms within that family. Cocoa and Cocoa Touch, I tried to explain, were the API families specific to four operating systems: macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

I pointed him to this definition, which I pulled up by a web search for define cocoa apple:

Cocoa is Apple’s native object-oriented application programming interface (API) for their operating system macOS. For iOS, tvOS, and watchOS, a similar API exists, named Cocoa Touch, which includes gesture recognition, animation, and a different set of graphical control elements.

He then threw that definition into another mind map, which he uses to keep notes. This was a cool and unexpected way of exploring new knowledge:

 

I’m fascinated by his learning toolset, which includes both mind mapping and Anki Decks (see https://apps.ankiweb.net and this explanation of Spaced repetition.) I tend to turn to paper and pen, or other familiar tools, to take notes or to share.

What kind of tools do you use to explore and explain new areas of learning?

Swift Style: Now Available for Amazon Pre-Order

Swift Style is almost wrapped up. I’m just waiting for some final copy edits. Notably, pre-orders are live on Amazon. (You can ignore the dates, page counts, etc there. They’re just place-fillers.) I just did a product video for Amazon, which hopefully will be posted over the next few weeks.

Once printed, Style will be on sale at all the major retailers as well as at Pragmatic. Pragmatic gives you the option of hybrid ebook/printed bundles, and gives me a slightly better slice of the royalty pie, if that matters to you. It’s a nice thing for me.

I’ll be remote talking about the book and Swift Style at PlaygroundsCon on the 24th (the 23rd in the US) this month and Forward Swift 2 on March 2. I also recently gave a talk at Realm’s Swift user SLUG meetup, which you can watch by following the link earlier in this sentence.

That’s not to say this project is done. Swift Style evolved from talking to developers. It represents viewpoints from the larger Swift development community. That process can and will continue as people read the book and I expand its guidance. The people at Pragmatic have been lovely in helping me plan out the book’s future as well as its present.