Matt MassicotteI took a moment to jot down some things I'm going to be paying close attention to during the WWDC announcements. Not a wish list - more like a watch list.
calicoding@mattiem re: SDK Swift Compatibility. My sense is that instead of updating the existing SDK interface, they would rather abandon it in favor of a half baked rewrite that sits incomplete for a decade
Weston is road tripping š@mattiem An item on my list is revamped Xcode project file format. It has so much unnecessary complexity. Iād like it to work more like package.swift declarations.
@weston I thought about adding this at one point, but forgot!
I think Apple managementās attitude towards AI is going to play a major factor in this decision.
Rick van Voorden
I Can't Believe It's Not Zero!@steve @mattiem I meant complexity in the UI and file format, not in features.
If someone really needs to manually adjust the optimization level for the c++ compiler, I don't think we need a dropdown box for that, they can just add the flag. It might give Apple a reason to spruce up the compiler documentation.
@steve @mattiem Basically, I just want the project file to be.
1. Easy to read.
2. Easy to handle merge conflicts.
3. Fast to load.
The current file format doesn't really meet any of these. In addition sometimes just opening the project generates a ton of diffs that most developers don't really know the consequences of.
If folks wanna build a frontend that lets them do crazy configs.. I am all for that, but the minimum set of options should be easy for average devs to reason about.
Simon Nickel@mattiem I guess if there is no meaningful movement towards a feature complete and more stable SwiftUI, I might actually consider moving back to UIKit š«£
Whatās That Function SwiftUI@simonnickel @mattiem Iām tempted at least once a week (but usually more often). There are so many sharp edges, walls, and cliffsāespecially trying to use it for macOS development (alongside iOS).
Ole Begemann@mattiem Re: āI thought that Apple was going to launch Swift 6 with a fully-annotated SDK. But we're now three years inā
Swift 6.0 came out in 2024. So weāre two years in, not three?
@ole š¬ will fix
Helge HeĆ@mattiem āpublicly discuss its internal use of xyzā - never going to happen š
@mattiem oh I thought of a new one. They should rename Photo Booth to Standup Check... because thats all I ever use it for. š¤£
Benedict Cohen@mattiem re Observations, UIKit supports it and itās even supported on iOS 18, albeit with limitations. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/updating-views-automatically-with-observation-tracking
@benedictc ah yes! I was actually thinking specifically about the Observations struct, which is new to the 26 OSes.
@mattiem ahh I see. What kind of usage would you be looking for? I would assume that even if a framework use Observations internally it would expose it as AsyncSequence.
I used TipKit for the first time recently which uses AsyncSequence to provide values (for UIKit). Itās the first time I recall encountering it in an Apple API and the pattern had some sharp corners. I wonder/hope they refine and standardise the patterns.
@benedictc if I remember right, ExtensionKit on macOS was the first API to prompt me to use Swifts concurrency system!
I dunno what Iām looking for specifically, just anything at allā¦
Jochen Zilske@mattiem the only thing on my list which is not on yours is expansion of Digital ID to more regions (e.g. the EU)
@mattiem oh and confirmation that UIDesignRequiresCompatibility is gone for good come April '27 of course
Konstantin š@mattiem Cool list Matt. I think your predictions make sense. Personally, I'd love to see some refocusing of syntax and the evolution process too. As for SwiftUI.. maybe it's time for a new UI framework that takes some learnings from SwiftUI and the ones before it š
@iamkonstantin me too on syntax but surprise WWDC evolution proposals are a very bad idea and I wonāt think (hope) weāll see that.
UI frameworks, huh? I see you are a dreamer I like it.
Aleksandar VaciÄ@iamkonstantin @mattiem Apple barely has bandwidth for the current UI frameworks. I donāt expect anything new happening in the next decade.