Not Only Swift Weekly - Issue #1

Hello!

Welcome to Not Only Swift Weekly, where I share stuff I am working on (including some behind-the-scenes looks into my work on the Firebase team), and things that inspire me.

Expect a colourful collection of links covering Xcode tips & tricks, new language features in Swift, a LOT of SwiftUI, Combine, everything Firebase, a bit of computing and internet history, and - of course - some fun stuff.

I hope you enjoy the first edition, and please always feel free to send me your feedback!

I’ve started working on a new series blog posts about SwiftUI List views. List views are incredibly versatile, and you can use them for many purposes. This week, I look at static list views, and how to create them. Did you know that you can not only use Text views to create list rows, but a bunch of other SwiftUI views as well? Check out the article to learn more!

SwiftUI previews are one of SwiftUI’s superpowers - they allow you to see how your views are going to look like, without having to launch your app (and having to navigate through the entire app to get to the particular screen you’re working on). But did you know you can preview more than one view? Just add another preview provider to your source file (get the code from this Gist):

As iOS developers, Xcode is the de-facto standard for building iOS apps. I’ve started iOS development when Xcode 3 was the latest release, and we’ve certainly come a far way since then. Especially in the past year, the team has added a bunch of really amazing features, from SwiftUI previews and matching refactorings to a much improved version control integration. But there are still some things that other IDEs are better at. JetBrains’ IDEs are well-known for their powerful refactorings, and AppCode is no exception. In addition to this, the latest release supports Swift 5.4, and integrates the latest version of Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile - which shows a live translation from Kotlin to Swift, making it easier for Kotlin developers to make the switch to Swift. How about you - do use any IDEs other than Xcode for your iOS development? Leave your vote on this poll!

Last week saw a pretty meaningful milestone for the Firebase iOS SDK: you can now add any of Firebase’s products to your project without ever leaving Xcode, thanks to full support for Swift Package Manager. Check out our blog post for more details.

I’ve recently come across Hypnotized by Purple Disco Machine and Sophie and the Giants (yeah, I know - it’s from 2020 - have I been living under a rock?!), and while I love the electronic version, this acoustic version is even more amazing:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one my favourite books (or, trilogy, rather. Well, actually, 5-part trilogy, to be precise…). My first contact with this masterpiece of science fiction was through the famous Infocom text adventure. If text adventure sounds a bit dull, check out this gem @codepo8 dug out: it’s an adaption of the original game, running in the browser in a pleasant UI: