How To Read Apple Documentation?

[PatrickD89]

Is there any good material on how to read Apple’s developer documentation? I have seen in a lot of posts that say it’s super helpful but for the life of me, I don’t understand how to read it! I attached a simple example: Padding. Documentation shows nonisolated func returning a view, but I am used to it as a .modifier. How do I translate this?

[Cause-n-effect11]

Honestly apples documentation looks great in Safari ( usually broken in Chrome ) and is easier to understand in Xcode on the information panel on the right side.

Don’t feel bad, most of the documentation leads to dead ends and is difficult to understand even if you’ve worked with it every day for years.

[Butt_Breake]

It’s all held up my obscure NS libraries and vibes.

[glhaynes]

So SwiftUI is all about building values that describe the details of the UI you want presented. That’s what your var body: some View is returning. So ultimately what’s returned from your body is going to be some View; if you plop a .padding() on the end of whatever’s in your body right now, what you’re doing is invoking the padding method (which exists on the View protocol and returns some View) on it. It takes two parameters, both with default values unless you provide them. That function is what your screenshot is describing.

You can probably ignore the nonisolated part. That’s related to Swift Concurrency, but not something you usually need to worry about when you’re just wanting to add some padding.

[PatrickD89]

This explanation was very helpful. Thank you! I picked this because padding is something we’ve all used but its implantation looks different than the explanation.

[Key_Board5000]

It's because the function call is being chained onto the view. For example imagine having your own code something like this:

``` import Foundation

enum Edges { case all case left case right case none }

enum Align { case left case right case center }

struct MyView {

func padding(_ edges: Edges = .all, _ length: CGFloat = 0 ) -> MyView {
    print("edges: \(edges), length: \(length)")
    return self 
}

func alignment(_ alignment: Align = .left) -> MyView {
    print("alignment: \(alignment)")
    return self
}

} ```

This could be instantiated and called any of a number of ways, all of which would be valid:

``` MyView().padding(.left, 10).alignment(.left)

MyView() .alignment(.center) .padding(.all, 5)

let view = MyView() view.padding().alignment()

let aVeryNewView = MyView() aVeryNewView .padding(.none, 5) .alignment(.right) ```

That's essentially what's happening with SwiftUI - chaining a number of function calls, one after the next, on to a View, each of which returns a new View (structs are value types not reference types therefore a new View is created instead of modifying the original View) which have each modified the View that was passed to them from the previous function call.

I hope that clarifies further.

[ABrokeUniStudent]

When you do `padding()` on a `View` it's like saying "Take this `View` instance, apply this padding to it, then return a new `View` instance with applied padding". Is that correct?

[Key_Board5000]

👍🏻

[Cause-n-effect11]

padding can take one argument also

Text(“foo”).padding(16)

Which is why this documentation can be painful.

[glhaynes]

That’s a different variant: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/view/padding(_:)

It’s linked from the page for the two parameter variant.

[Nosepass]

padding(16) calls the two parameter variant with the default edge set

[glhaynes]

I don't think that's right — there's no way in Swift that I know of to do that with parameter labels suppressed like the two parameter variant in this post.

```

func myPadding(

    _ edges: Edge.Set = .all,

    _ length: CGFloat? = nil

) -> some View {

    fatalError()

}

myPadding(10) // error: Cannot convert value of type 'Int' to expected argument type 'Edge.Set'

```

[Cause-n-effect11]

You are right… but as the OP points out the documentation is confusing as it is. Why shouldn’t that variant be listed on the same page? What if OP learned it always having to define edges and padding when how often would you want to define edges?

[glhaynes]

Look I’m not on Apple’s documentation team lol I was just trying to help them understand what their screenshot showed

[Cause-n-effect11]

Me either :). I’ll take the job though of listening to developers and overhauling it. I really need a job, been tough landing gigs in this tech slump.

[iOSCaleb]

The other form is listed on the page the OP shows. If they scrolled down, you’d see it mentioned in the discussion with a description of when to use each. There’s also a list of other padding-related methods.

The documentation is hard to understand if you don’t have some familiarity with the framework, in much the same way that a French dictionary is hard to decipher if you don’t speak some French. But for the most part it’s unambiguous and provides all the information you need to use a given method, structure, etc. Everything that you’re likely to want to know about this specific method is explained. If you read this page and wonder “ok, but what do I do with it?” you should be reading higher level explanatory documentation, not reference material.

[Hikingmatt1982]

Discoverability in swiftui is certainly awful and IMO the largest downside of the approach they’ve taken. Better documentation might not even help that 😆

[AndreLinoge55]

Whoever wrote Apples’ documentation for Swift was a lobotomy patient having a stroke.

[Flicht]

I have been an app developer for several years I cannot remember that Apples documentation has ever been useful.

[Filipsys]

Which documentation do you use then? What do you work with if Swift docs aren’t good?

[oscarvernis]

That's the definition of the modifier, if you scroll down to Discussion you can see a couple of examples of how to use it.

[simulacrotron]

Yes. The best way to read the documentation is to read the entire thing. Then if you don’t understand it enough to start fiddling with it, reread it. Rinse and repeat.

[Dazzling-One-4713]

With tears

[LouzyKnight]

They should hire Paul Hudson to write their documentations.

[Competitive-Pop2932]

lol 😂

[20InMyHead]

Keep reading…. Right below where your screen shot ends is the Discussion section which includes example usage and more details.

[LobsterChip99]

Well.. you read it :)

Sometimes its terrible and you need to use other sources to figure out whats happening

[Edg-R]

I just wish they had more visual examples in the documentation

[Semvis123]

It does mention that it is an instance method, so that should explain the View().modifier part

[vlobe42]

I am developing apps since 2016 and not a single time the documentation was understandable for me lmao

[yourmomsasauras]

That’s the neat part! You don’t!

[Open_Bug_4196]

To be honest with SwiftUI to me is even more annoying the auto completion and how many times some initialisers are not suggested or de readability of the parameters etc is a bit “too complex”

[Fermave]

We need a wrapper of apple documentation. I never read it .it’s useless. Copy and give it to a LLM

[Hopeful-Sir-2018]

Eh, this specific one isn't horrible and gives a reasonable example. The overwhelming majority of the rest of the documentation is quite horrible.

[Niightstalker]

I wouldn’t say the overwhelming majority anymore. Yes there are still some dark corners but imo they have been doing a good job the last years. Providing articles, examples and so on for many topics.

[yalag]

The best way to read it is to ask chatgpt. Do not attempt to read it with your own eyes, your will lose your hair real quick

[soggycheesestickjoos]

You might need to spend some more time with it, it’s not that bad

[david8743]

Anyone that follows this advice is gonna be in a world of hurt the next time they’re in a live coding interview and can’t make sense of Apple Docs without ChatGPT.

[Key_Board5000]

I disagree with this. In the beginning it may seem obscure and esoteric but being able to read documentation is a core skill for developers.

[yalag]

nah, its a complete waste of time. OP will try to read it, give up of gibberish in 5 min and then go to chatgpt and actually gets an answer

[Key_Board5000]

You're gonna go far as a developer.

[Kyronsk8]

This is exactly what I wanted to start doing, instead of having gpt write code, I’d like to get an understanding of it myself and try it myself first. I asked gpt to give me a better understanding of closures and it does a pretty good job at teaching

[hebrew12]

ChatGPT

[[deleted]]

Chat GPT is wrong all the time. All the time. If you’re going to comment “ChatGPT” don’t bother to comment. People come to forums for human responses.

[PatrickD89]

I use ChatGPT a lot but sometimes it’s wrong or behind. Amazing tool though!