3 ms·

The Swift language has excellent documentation. For SwiftUI, the WWDC presentations are essential, IMO, for the high-level stuff. There is basic reference docu

by jmull 7y ago

The Swift language has excellent documentation. For SwiftUI, the WWDC presentations are essential, IMO, for the high-level stuff. There is basic reference documentation, but there's no way to put it all together without a high-level understanding. It follows the patterns of some other frameworks so depending on your experience you may be able to get by without the WWDC presentations, but I'd still watch them or at least read the transcripts. I think Swift Package Manager is meant as a community tool, and the love and care it needs to become excellent is not going to be coming from Apple, not without some kind of strategic change. Either the community will value it and figure out how to move it forward or it's not going to get much better. I could be wrong -- I'm trying to judge it's on-going strategic importance to Apple -- but I think the way it's going to improve is through community involvement. Anyway, I'm not sure what the point of this kind of rant is. Whining about Apple is an easy way to get useless internet karma points, but it's such a bad look for a developer. At least half the job is being the one who finally deals with things someone else probably should have already dealt with but didn't.

andybak 7y ago
> For SwiftUI, the WWDC presentations are essential, Are these videos, slides and transcripts? I do hope not because none of those things are documentation by any reasonable definition.
- jmull 7y ago
  They are. I definitely don't think it's an ideal form. The content itself is high-quality, but I'd much prefer a well-written document. I point it out because if you want to learn SwiftUI your best approach is probably to start with the presentations, whether you like that form or not. Many will naturally avoid that kind of content and I'm trying to communicate that in this case you really should use the presentations.
chriskrycho 7y ago
Noted the first two bits in the post. Did you read it? :) As far as SPM goes: they've got it built into Xcode at this point, and are doing WWDC sessions about it. At what point does it become "official" enough to warrant "This needs to be better" criticism? As far as "useless internet karma points": I couldn't care less. History has shown that when people make enough stink about this kind of thing, it sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—gets to the ears of people high enough in the management chain that it ends up shaking things loose at the mid-level spots where poor decisions around these things tend to get made. I don't work at Apple. I can't go fix most of this stuff. In my day job, I spend a lot of time on these kinds of concerns. In this context, though, the only thing I can do is shout a bit and hope it shakes things up a bit.
- jmull 7y ago
  > Noted the first two bits in the post. Did you read it? :) Yes, I did read. Come on. However, you're not quite right. You called Swift "relatively well covered". I disagree with that and consider the Swift language documentation excellent. That's not really the same thing. I did see you mention the WWDC videos, but I think you mischaracterize the role of them. My point is, people who are interested in learning SwiftUI should start with the WWDC videos, not feel "reduced to searching through" them. Anyway, if you want to work on top of something solid, forget about SwiftUI. It's very raw and changing fast. I wouldn't rewrite on top of it now unless you aren't planning to release for at least a year. And you might end up throwing it all away anyway. And shout all you want. I'm letting you know it's a bad look.
  - chriskrycho 7y ago
    To be clear: I've watched every SwiftUI video. They're great! They just aren't the same as docs. As for the look: I understand the take. We obviously differ on whether it's ever appropriate to make some noise this way. For my part, when it's come my direction (as it has a couple times in the Ember ecosystem), I've appreciated it.

by jmull 7y ago

andybak 7y ago

> For SwiftUI, the WWDC presentations are essential, Are these videos, slides and transcripts? I do hope not because none of those things are documentation by any reasonable definition.

jmull 7y ago
They are. I definitely don't think it's an ideal form. The content itself is high-quality, but I'd much prefer a well-written document. I point it out because if you want to learn SwiftUI your best approach is probably to start with the presentations, whether you like that form or not. Many will naturally avoid that kind of content and I'm trying to communicate that in this case you really should use the presentations.

chriskrycho 7y ago

Noted the first two bits in the post. Did you read it? :) As far as SPM goes: they've got it built into Xcode at this point, and are doing WWDC sessions about it. At what point does it become "official" enough to warrant "This needs to be better" criticism? As far as "useless internet karma points": I couldn't care less. History has shown that when people make enough stink about this kind of thing, it sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—gets to the ears of people high enough in the management chain that it ends up shaking things loose at the mid-level spots where poor decisions around these things tend to get made. I don't work at Apple. I can't go fix most of this stuff. In my day job, I spend a lot of time on these kinds of concerns. In this context, though, the only thing I can do is shout a bit and hope it shakes things up a bit.

jmull 7y ago
> Noted the first two bits in the post. Did you read it? :) Yes, I did read. Come on. However, you're not quite right. You called Swift "relatively well covered". I disagree with that and consider the Swift language documentation excellent. That's not really the same thing. I did see you mention the WWDC videos, but I think you mischaracterize the role of them. My point is, people who are interested in learning SwiftUI should start with the WWDC videos, not feel "reduced to searching through" them. Anyway, if you want to work on top of something solid, forget about SwiftUI. It's very raw and changing fast. I wouldn't rewrite on top of it now unless you aren't planning to release for at least a year. And you might end up throwing it all away anyway. And shout all you want. I'm letting you know it's a bad look.
- chriskrycho 7y ago
  To be clear: I've watched every SwiftUI video. They're great! They just aren't the same as docs. As for the look: I understand the take. We obviously differ on whether it's ever appropriate to make some noise this way. For my part, when it's come my direction (as it has a couple times in the Ember ecosystem), I've appreciated it.