Switching switches and considering my pitches

The keyboard rabbit hole has deepened. A book recommendation. And schools are about to start.

This week's links:

• Handling links with SwiftUI's openURL | FIVE STARS
• How to write unit tests for SwiftUI apps | mokacoding
• Unit testing UIView action and gesture in Swift
• How to show multiple alerts on the same view in SwiftUI | Sarunw
• How to use throwing properties to catch failures in Swift - SwiftLee

Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track

An introduction to Kailh switches, including Speed & Box – The Keyboard Company

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Lead Software Developer 
Learn best practices for being a great lead software developer.

Transcript

Jeroen Leenarts: 0:46

Hi, and welcome to episode 43 of my podcast app Force One. My name is Jeroen Leenarts. And I've been developing iOS apps for nine years and I'm brand new Dutch cocoa has for close to eight years. If you're an iOS app developer, you should listen to my podcast because we'll keep you updated some interesting articles, and events you might not have heard about. In this episode, I'm going to talk about handling links with Swift you eyes open URL, how to write unit tests for swift UI apps, unit testing, UI view, action and gesture in Swift, how to show multiple alerts on the same view in Swift UI, how to use throwing properties to catch failures in Swift. I also wanted to mention my workshop on September 2, there's a lot of work going into that already. And I'm really looking forward to executing in a few weeks time. What's very interesting is that having to review my own books material is very helpful in seeing what things I've been doing wrong myself lately. And I'm really trying to refocus on my own efforts as a lead developer, and trying to improve my day to day work based on my own work. So that's very, very meta, actually, that's actually happening in this way. But also, it means that I have a lot to teach, including myself, and really look forward to people joining me. So if you want to learn more about becoming or being a good lead software developer, then have a look at my book and my workshop. And in my workshop, I am going to try to give my participants actionable piece of content and advice that they can execute on immediately after the workshop. So that within a couple months time, they should have real effects of having participated in my workshop. So it's, it's a big goal. But I think it's worthwhile for you to check out my content, I'm a workshop, if you're into these kinds of things. And if you want to grow as a software developer, on that note, there's also a very interesting book that I wanted to mention. It's a book that I've been reading myself, it's called staff engineer leadership beyond the management track by well Larson i What's very interesting about this book, that it's, it's actually making a case for having to develop an tracks for software developers. On the one hand, that's the classical thing that you usually end up with. So you, you start your career, you start developing software, and then at some point, you hit the ceiling. And then the only way out is to go into into a sort of a leadership role in the sense that you have to become some kind of project manager, or engineering manager, or even a chief technology officer of a company, there's a long road to actually grow into this position. And in his book, will Larson actually advocate that there should be another ladder that you could climb as a software developer, and this is a technical ladder. And these, this is a role that takes you from junior to immediate to senior, and then at some point, you will end up as a staff or principal engineer. Now, we've all seen these, these job titles, and it's even for me, it's it sounds big and scary. But yeah, I do notice that with his book, it's it's very interesting to to see that are maybe even options out there. And that you should look beyond the confines of the job title and the job role that you're currently in. And not even just for growing vertically in an organization. But also to just understand that your current role, your current position, as a software developer, it's not what defines your career. And if you want to change it, then right now world circumstances are in such a way that you can quite easily make a career move or make career switch, because it's really a candidate driven market right now. So you as a job candidate, can pretty much based on your skills dictate what what companies and employers should offer you as a software developer. So that's, that's a very opportune moment that we have right now in the world. So I highly recommend anybody who's in the field of software development to be aware of this and to not take advantage of it but to have an impact on yourself and, and your surroundings that is mutually beneficial. So something to think about beyond iOS software development. Now on another note, the mechanical keyboard, dark hole I tripped into has deepened itself even further. So there's now a switch kits on its way with I think they're called Calle speed bronze switches. I've been testing a lot of different keyboard switches lately, and it seems that I'm going into the domain of speed clicky switches. So those are keys with a very short travel before they actuate and What I really like about these kill switches is that they have sort of a double clicky effect. So once you press the button, there's a mechanical click. And if you release the button, there's a mechanical click, as well. So definitely highly recommended to only use these in a home environment in the attic, away from as many people as possible, because these things, they make a lot of noise. But I really like to feel and the sound when I'm typing on them, I hope because right now I'm using kale box wide switches, which are really big, but I really like some less travel in my switches, if possible. So enough on the keyboard schools are about to start again in the Netherlands. So I expect to share little bits of information on how things are going with my daughter. Because before the summer vacation, I was already sharing some information on her. But there's a lot of things that are going to change in her small life, especially the peer group that she's going to be a part of in in a few weeks time. And I really look forward to seeing how she will be in this environment. And I really hope that it's something that matches up with what she needs and what allows her to really be more herself in any circumstance that she is in as a little girl that's only six years old. So fingers crossed that things work out the way that we hope my wife and I for our daughter. And yeah, let's just get started with the articles of this week. First article is by Federico Sena Telo. On his five star blog, it's called handling links with Swift UI is open URL. So it's an article about using Open URL in Swift UI. But there's been a number of upgrades to attribute strings and the text view and how open URL function works. In his article, Federico gives a nice overview of what you can do with the link and how you can use a text and how you can actually call open URL in a way that it's it's very nicely formatted on screen as a as a button styling as well with various font and text attributes. It's very simple, if you know, Swift UI and how to influence a text display. But just seeing it in action in his article with lots of screenshots and sample code is really nice to remember you about what Open URL is, is about. There's also a section with what's new and the latest Xcode 13. Better. So that means that this article is fully up to date with the current state of things regarding the open rail function. Also, he goes into how the URLs that you open through this API are handled, and what things you can actually derive from these, these URLs once you're handling them, because there's actually a lot of things that are available to you and really dig into. And you can do nice things based on this. And you should really look at federic this article to get a good grasp an overview of this nice little API in in iOS. Next up is geo with Mocha coding. He has an article on how to write unit tests for swift UI apps. So it's a question that you hear quite often from soft developers getting started with Swift UI. How do you write unit tests for swift UI apps? With its declarative approach to development, and it's opaque types. Swift UI doesn't lend itself to writing unit tests, our UI and snapshot tests are the only option that you have? Or should you generate multiple previews for every behavior, and permutation of your views? The answer is actually simpler and doesn't require that much, or any extra tooling, just good software design. So to test you swift UI applications, don't test swift UI code. And in his article, geo actually shows you how to write unit test for the actual logic behind the Swift UI app by decoupling layout declaration from content generation. And, yeah, it's very solid overview of how you can separate your UI from the actual logic that is within your app. And I think it's it's a good overview of an approach that you can take to actually add unit testing to a swift UI code base. Now, just to remind you on UI testing, and what you can do with that, there is an article by Benoit Bhaskar that he has released this week as well, or at least in the last week. It's called unit testing UI view actions and gestures in Swift. So it's an article on how you can use UI testing on a UI Kit based view hierarchy, to actually have interactions with your user interface and to use mocking to make sure that you can actually display all the different variations of your user interface. So very worthwhile article to remind yourself on what you should be doing with UI testing in UI Kit based applications, and also a good starting point. If you want to get into the previous art article that I mentioned by Geo. The next article that I wanted to mention is by siaran. You can find it at saruni w.com. How to show multiple alerts on the same view in Swift, why? Swift UI can't have multiple alert modifiers on the same view, the same branch and a few hierarchy to be exact. And only latest outermost alert will work. If you've got multiple alert modifiers in the same branch and a few hierarchy. So in his article, saloon details high can have multiple alerts on the same view regardless. So according to this rule, this is actually a bug in iOS 1314. That's now fixed in iOS 15. I haven't dealt with this Personally, myself. But I do find this article interesting in that he seems to find ways to use Swift UI. In a way that's Yeah, that might seem non obvious. But once you're really developing some software with it, that it's actually something that you will run into. So it's a good solution for a problem that you might get if you're having to display alerts on your user interface. And I think it's a good one to be aware of the test. This is actually a big difference between iOS 14 and 15. And, yeah, so just to be aware of changes coming into iOS 15, I think this is an article that is worthwhile to read. And if you're especially having some issues with alerts, then make sure to check this out, because maybe this is something that applies to your situation. The next article is by Antoine formulae, he has a nice write up again, on how you can use strong properties to catch fish in Swift. So this is a big change that's coming in Swift 5.5. And it's basically that you can now tro from getter functions within a fire. Just have a look at the first code sample in his article, and you know exactly what I'm talking about. What's interesting here is that Antoine provides a great overview with all the source material from the original swift evolution proposal, which is SC 310. And it's a big part actually, of the async await concurrency changes that allow async properties to throw errors. So it's it's one of these essential features in Swift 5.5 that are required to actually be able to use async await within this new version of Swift. In this article, Antoine details how you can define your own trolling properties in Swift, and how you can define a trolling custom subscripts if you'd like and how you can define a troll and getter for stored properties. So he has some thoughts and also on whether or not you should decide between a throwing property or a throwing method. And it's, it's so well worth and balanced article on this new great feature in Swift 5.51 of many new features in Swift 5.5, I should say. And now it's time for Dawn is Monday morning tweets. Then Steph is hoping Donnie had a great weekend he released a new tutorial explaining his thought process on how he would architect an app with async await and MVVM in Swift UI. Phillip Nemecek shared an idea on Twitter last week, and now he's working on in the app store. And he's really excited about it. Daniel is working on the app telemetry app some more and there's a lot of work that goes into actually making a company. Mohammed just released a small app this week to stay up to date of the latest updates of Apple systems called I betta. And Daniel is speaking at cokehead Snell on Wednesday. He's very excited but he's also feeling a bit intimidated. And Trent is rebuilding his native iOS app with React Native as an iOS development iOS only release has been a dream sport, but it's time to expand. Rove is building pinboards at to do Cameron app using switch wire for Mac OS and eventually iOS is building out in the open so he's tweeting out in his progress in the thread. Azzam is preparing for the try swift talk on async await. Luke took some time over the last two weeks to travel back to the old days of iOS six as he approached recreating the Weather app a UI kit and laying out the UI in VFL. James is thinking about the next applicants will it be September 7 or September 14, with pre orders on the 10th or the 17th and the launched on the 24th is thinking about blocking all those dates on this calendar. And Max is really happy he got a message that he has passed his trial periods and Marius has worked on the marketing materials and press kit for an app active me and made it available for pre order. What is relaxing after a hectic week hacking together a temporary sites for Maxime SDK for a national Danish Radio Show podcast and he appeared on the show yesterday. The site isn't Danish but you can navigate the shells and see the photos and That's it for this week. I really hope you enjoyed a podcast episode this time around, do have a look at the show notes and links that are in there. If you want to help support my podcast, please consider becoming a pot fan. You can find it at pot dot fan slash approach one and you'll get early access to my interviews. I'm just short a few fans of being able to afford transcription of my podcast so that I can reshare the content in a readable format, which would really help with me growing my podcast. Talk to you again next week.