Issue 686

Comment

If you didn’t catch GitHub Universe, you might have missed the announcement of a new Xcode plug-in that “officially” brings Copilot into Xcode.

It’s true that we’ve had plugins like this for a while. You might even think that the official GitHub plugin seems closely related to Shx Guo’s plugin that I linked to last year. It seems like GitHub did the right thing, though, before you get the pitchforks out!

So, which is better: Copilot integrated into Xcode or Xcode’s Predictive Code Completion model? I read Cristina Poncela Cubeiro’s comparison of both tools, and she puts Copilot as the clear winner. The two tools take a completely different approach to the problem, with Xcode’s model running locally, of course, but they are close enough that they deserve to be compared.

I wrote about my experience with Xcode’s predictive completion a few weeks ago after working with it for a few hours, and I liked it. However, since writing that, I must admit I have switched the feature off. It wasn’t quite good enough, and it slowed me down more often than it speeded me up. Like Cristina, I find the opposite with Copilot.

Of course, the Xcode plugin model is far from ideal, and Apple will always have the advantage when it comes to IDE integration. That said, the Visual Studio Code Swift plugin continues to improve, and Copilot is very much at home in that environment.

But that’s not all that’s happening over on the Visual Studio Code side of things! I recently discovered Sweetpad, whose authors are putting even more work into bringing Apple platform development into that editor.

Finally, I’ve not yet had a chance to try Cursor myself but it’s also turning some heads as an AI-integrated fork of Visual Studio Code. I first came across it from Rudrank Riyam’s set of articles, but it also got a mention this week in this recent post from Thomas Ricouard. You should read all that if you’re looking to explore how AI can help you write apps.

The future is bright if you’re on board with AI code assistance!

News

Security research on Private Cloud Compute

Were you curious about the details of Private Cloud Compute when Sebastien Marineau-Mes first announced it? Apple published some details along with the announcement, but if you wanted more info on the security side of things, this new article will surely satisfy you.

Tools

Testpiler

Do you have one eye on your expansive XCTest test suite and the other on swift-testing? This tool from Tim Sampson might be just what you need. It’s free with no in-app purchases, too, so you’ve nothing to lose from giving it a go.

Xcode stops fetching Swift packages

Daniel Saidi noticed something you should watch out for if you use Sourcetree with Xcode 16.1.

Code

Testing the Untestable

I really enjoyed Allen Pike’s recent post, which he also delivered as a talk at Infer Vancouver on automated testing when it comes to LLM output. Where do you even start with testing something which includes randomness by design? You could do worse than starting here!

Writing a chess app

This is great. David v.Knobelsdorff recently built a chess app from start to finish with SwiftUI and documented the whole process on his blog. With nine parts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) it’s a long read but worth reading if you have either an interest in chess or are looking for a good end-to-end SwiftUI example.

Understanding actors in Swift

I really enjoyed this straightforward look at actors from Natascha Fadeeva. If you’re new to the subject then this is a great introduction.

The Hidden Replacement for Date RelativeFormatStyle

Let’s finish with Alejandro Martinez with a story of spelunking into the depths of Foundation to find a hidden API.

Videos

Swift Virtuoso

When I first saw the title of James Dempsey’s new course, I was so happy because I’ve always wanted to play the ukulele! I was sad to learn it wasn’t that kind of virtuoso, but my spirits lifted when I saw it covers Apple’s woefully underused profiler, Instruments.

I wouldn’t usually link to a course like this that’s made up of Zoom sessions as it’s impossible to know what the content will be like. That said, the combination of live sessions plus office hours and knowing it’s James delivering the material means I have no doubt it will be great.

Jobs

Staff Software Engineer - iOS @ NewStore – Join NewStore and be part of a forward-thinking team dedicated to crafting exceptional mobile experiences. We embrace TDD, pairing, and best engineering principles, fostering an environment where you can lead, inspire, and help shape the future of our iOS engineering culture. – Remote (within European timezones) with some on-site work (Germany, Netherlands, or United Kingdom)

Senior iOS Developer @ komoot – You’ll team up with six world-class iOS engineers, take over full responsibility for our iOS app, and develop diverse features for navigation, routing, social interaction, and content visualization that will make your work challenging and fun. – Remote (within European timezones)

And finally...

you basically just have Apple’s first-party environments. Which are wildly nice, have day and night modes, and are just spectacular, to be sure. But what if you want something different?

🥽

Issue 686 November 8th 2024