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I think SwiftUI is actually causing Swift a lot of reputation damage. I rarely see the issues common to moderately complex SwiftUI views when writing Swift with

I think SwiftUI is actually causing Swift a lot of reputation damage. I rarely see the issues common to moderately complex SwiftUI views when writing Swift with code-only AppKit/UIKit, for a CLI program, etc.

hombre_fatal 2y ago
I jumped directly into SwiftUI for a few macOS apps I published, and the weird performance issues / UI lag / Compose complexity for even simplistic apps were hard to navigate, even after a year. Yet rewriting components in AppKit/UIKit feels regressive since even Apple's docs migrated to SwiftUI, but sometimes that was the right answer to regain some control over what was going on. Though some of that was limited to macOS which seems to get a lot less attention from Apple than iOS, or because you're naturally building more complex layouts on macOS. But it always makes me appreciate how much better the kit is for building web frontends.
- jwells89 2y ago
  Most of the layouts I've built on macOS are actually simpler than their iOS counterparts because the mode of interaction is so different. Getting data onto the screen in a somewhat natural way is usually less of a contorted process because one doesn't need to deal with a software keyboard, a narrow viewport, lots of scrolling, etc. The problem with SwiftUI on macOS in my opinion is that it's just not well-suited to the types of layouts common on desktop and especially macOS. It's best at uniform grids and lists which is more of a mobile thing. On macOS you want things like visually balanced whitespace, optical centering of labels+controls in forms, etc which are often rather arbitrary and exactly the thing that SwiftUI is worst at.
felipefar 2y ago
I've heard about SwiftUI just some months ago, and was initially excited about the demonstration in WWDC, so I started to pay more attention to it. Now I've been reading comments on how it doesn't handle well more complex UIs, but haven't really read anything in depth. Can you recommend any resources on that?
- jamil7 2y ago
  I use it full time, I’d say if you’re targeting iOS17+ you’re probably good. On macOS it’s completely busted still and I wouldn’t bother with it. The future of mac apps looks even bleaker than it did before.
chrismsimpson 2y ago
All this magic being baked into the language (as opposed to the libraries/ecosystem) is why I abandoned being a native app developer professionally
- jwells89 2y ago
  Eh, I'm not too bothered by it. SwiftUI has its issues but I've put the result builder feature powering it to use for things vastly more simple than SwiftUI, for which it works very well. It's a net positive overall and I prefer it to having to rope in libraries for every little thing.

hombre_fatal 2y ago

I jumped directly into SwiftUI for a few macOS apps I published, and the weird performance issues / UI lag / Compose complexity for even simplistic apps were hard to navigate, even after a year. Yet rewriting components in AppKit/UIKit feels regressive since even Apple's docs migrated to SwiftUI, but sometimes that was the right answer to regain some control over what was going on. Though some of that was limited to macOS which seems to get a lot less attention from Apple than iOS, or because you're naturally building more complex layouts on macOS. But it always makes me appreciate how much better the kit is for building web frontends.

jwells89 2y ago
Most of the layouts I've built on macOS are actually simpler than their iOS counterparts because the mode of interaction is so different. Getting data onto the screen in a somewhat natural way is usually less of a contorted process because one doesn't need to deal with a software keyboard, a narrow viewport, lots of scrolling, etc. The problem with SwiftUI on macOS in my opinion is that it's just not well-suited to the types of layouts common on desktop and especially macOS. It's best at uniform grids and lists which is more of a mobile thing. On macOS you want things like visually balanced whitespace, optical centering of labels+controls in forms, etc which are often rather arbitrary and exactly the thing that SwiftUI is worst at.

felipefar 2y ago

I've heard about SwiftUI just some months ago, and was initially excited about the demonstration in WWDC, so I started to pay more attention to it. Now I've been reading comments on how it doesn't handle well more complex UIs, but haven't really read anything in depth. Can you recommend any resources on that?

jamil7 2y ago
I use it full time, I’d say if you’re targeting iOS17+ you’re probably good. On macOS it’s completely busted still and I wouldn’t bother with it. The future of mac apps looks even bleaker than it did before.

chrismsimpson 2y ago

All this magic being baked into the language (as opposed to the libraries/ecosystem) is why I abandoned being a native app developer professionally

jwells89 2y ago
Eh, I'm not too bothered by it. SwiftUI has its issues but I've put the result builder feature powering it to use for things vastly more simple than SwiftUI, for which it works very well. It's a net positive overall and I prefer it to having to rope in libraries for every little thing.