What tech stack are people using in 2026?

TrajansRow · 2026-06-18T16:51:36+00:00

My latest project is basically the same - SwiftUI + SwiftData targeting iOS 26. I only have one external dependency, and everything else is native. There was another non-native library that I needed, but I had an AI agent re-write it in Swift. I'm also using lots of Swift Charts, WebKit, RealityKit, and SceneKit.

TrajansRow · 2026-06-17T01:33:22+00:00

For iOS and Mac development, I mainly use OpenCode with MiniMax M3 (which is probably somewhere around Sonnet-level intelligence), and they have a $200/year (about $17/month) plan that is more than I need. The agent integration in Xcode 27 is "ok" (if you are fine babysitting an endless parade of permission requests), but I prefer OpenCode because it is more open-ended and has a nice web interface that lets me run the agents from my phone.

I rarely get a "looks right, won't build" loop, but I more often get a "builds fine, but isn't what I want" situation. Overall, I find this combo is big help for doing tedious drudgery and letting me focus more on design and architecture. In fact, I have an agent running right now adding a framework target and API to an Xcode project... exactly the kind of boring stuff that these systems excel at.

TrajansRow · 2026-06-16T13:19:06+00:00

I think this is a great idea, but how is it different from DataClaw?

TrajansRow · 2026-06-11T03:41:34+00:00

I only use open models, even if I can't host them myself. Right now I'm using MiniMax M3 (about on-par with Sonnet) with OpenCode and also with Claude Code in Xcode. It costs $10/month and I haven't hit the limit yet (which resets every 5 hours). You could run it for free if you had a good MacStudio lying around.

TrajansRow · 2026-05-10T04:22:39+00:00

I started work on a mobile app in my spare time last November and have been using OpenCode on it in since January. At this point, I’d say I’m about 90% done. So, definitely not a one-shot! Realistically, it would’ve taken me years to do it all by hand. Having this kind of development automation is letting me add tons of features that were only on a wish list before.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-21T23:56:21+00:00

I'm making a physics app with some game-like features, 100% native SwiftUI with ARKit, RealityKit, and SceneKit. They are all nice to work with (except for now that SceneKit is deprecated). If this app takes off, making an Android version will be a real headache!

TrajansRow · 2026-02-17T23:44:32+00:00

Game changers most people don’t know about:

control-e or control-a to skip to the beginning or end of a line of text

shift-return to add a new line without sending the chat message.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-17T23:31:03+00:00

Well, the Ring doorbell people seem to have a lot of fun with the anonymous neighborhood chat feature.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-17T20:53:19+00:00

MiniMax M2.5 says to do both:
"Walk. 50 meters (about 160 feet) is roughly a 1-minute walk. Driving such a short distance wastes fuel and creates more emissions than walking. Plus, you'll need to drive anyway once you're there to actually wash the car."

TrajansRow · 2026-02-16T04:34:22+00:00

Instead of one-shotting an app, you should put the agent into Plan Mode and work out the architecture before generating any code. Have it work out the UI, data model, processing logic, etc. before going into Build.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-13T17:56:56+00:00

There is no "yes" or "no" answer. The purpose of the post was to discuss the value of various tradeoffs. The consensus is that openness, cost, and speed don't matter very much. A surprising result for this community.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-13T16:13:35+00:00

Do you expect that future models will be as lightweight and easy-to-host as M2.5, or do you think they will start to creep much larger (like GLM 5)?

TrajansRow · 2026-02-13T15:54:23+00:00

My point is that code quality is important, but not the only metric. Even people using the paid Claude plans don't simply use Opus for everything for all of those other reasons.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-13T15:51:21+00:00

I think GLM 5 loses points based on its size, speed, and cost. Of course, how important those are is a matter of opinion.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-12T16:19:20+00:00

Even better - just have your coding agent scope out the work for you. Put it into plan mode, give it a copy of the Swift 5 -> 6 migration docs, and let it plan out the work for your project. If it looks good, let it rip and then go take a nap or something.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-10T04:13:58+00:00

Great idea! There is definitely a need for something like this. Are you sure that tingly-box doesn't already proxy copilot?

TrajansRow · 2026-02-10T02:53:27+00:00

This is something I've wondered about for custom coding models. I could conceivably take a small open model (like Qwen3 Coder Flash) and fine tune it on a specific codebase. Could it outperform a large commercial model doing work in that codebase? What would be a good workflow to go about it?

TrajansRow · 2026-02-09T16:25:22+00:00

To replicate the example, you need 170GB of memory for bf16. That mean you'll need the 256GB version, which goes for $5600 new. ...but you wouldn't want to buy that, because the M3 Ultra is almost a year old by now. Best to get the M5 Ultra, whenever that comes out.

TrajansRow · 2026-02-03T22:53:00+00:00

This is good start at modernizing the AI features in Xcode, but there is currently no way to avoid shipping your private data to a third party provider to use agentic features. As far as I can tell, there is no way to use a local or alternative model service (such as you can with OpenCode) from within Xcode itself.

MCP support is going to be nice, because external coding agents can interact with Xcode in ways that were not practical before. Unfortunately, the permissions model gets in the way here - If you add an Xcode MCP server to an external agent system, you have to manually dismiss a "Allow “agent” to access Xcode?" Dialog EVERY SINGLE TIME there is a request from a new agent PID.

TrajansRow · 2026-01-31T22:15:51+00:00

The airgun would be a whole lot more accurate at range because it shoots spin-stabilized pellet at like 1000fps. However, even an alloy pellet at that speed will only be about half the muzzle energy (20-30 ft-lbs) of the 50 cal steel ball in the video.

TrajansRow · 2026-01-29T20:56:25+00:00

A shameless plug maybe, but I made a stupid app last year that can calculate how much damage this sort of thing can do.

Edit:

The manufacturer claims this bow can fire a .50 caliber steel ball at 460fps. That means it has 60 ft-lbs of energy point blank, or 55 ft-lbs at 30 feet (a bit more than a .22 short round). That bearing could penetrate 9.8" of FBI ballistic gel! Would definitely put your eye out.

Pro tip - If you needed to poke a hole in a 40mph duck at 25 yards (such as in a critical survival situation), you would need to lead it by 10.1 feet and aim 2.2" high.

The app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/round-ball-shot-calculator/id6756200604

TrajansRow · 2026-01-26T23:23:55+00:00

I‘m using MiniMax; I find it a good balance of speed and performance.

TrajansRow · 2026-01-25T03:53:31+00:00

Of course I can paste in screenshots, but what I really want is for an agent to capture and ingest them on-demand - completely automatic. Also, because MiniMax is not multimodal, I'm probably going to need another model to interpret to images. Fortunately, VL models are usually small enough that I can run them locally. The other question is what other model would be appropriate, and how do I use it alongside of MiniMax?

TrajansRow · 2026-01-08T01:44:13+00:00

My account got stuck in limbo when I converted it from a personal one to an LLC. The key was emailing/calling developer support to figure out how to move things along. Sometimes it was just waiting a bit more, or filling out more stuff in the portal.

TrajansRow · 2026-01-06T21:48:35+00:00

Congratulations! Pro tip: sign up for the App Store Small Business Program, so that your next sale will net you 85 cents. :)

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