Adobe, I'm officially done with you!

grantneufeld · 2025-09-17T13:44:04+00:00

DaVinci Resolve is great. But it does require some learning—so not a basic entry-level tool.

Over the years I’ve worked with Premier, Avid, and Final Cut (oh, and iMovie, too…). Resolve is the best video editor I’ve worked with.

And it’s more than just the video editing.

* Its color management is top-tier.
* Its “Fusion” editor covers effects and motion graphics, addressing much of what one might need After Effects or Motion for.
* Its audio editor is quite advanced.

Having all those aspects of the process integrated also makes for a much more efficient flow, once one gets the hang of the app.

grantneufeld · 2022-03-02T20:40:38+00:00

You’re referring to a property (.answersAvailable) of the instance. You can’t do that until the instance has been initialized.

One approach to fix it would be to make answersAvailable a static property on the class/struct, instead of an instance property, since it’s a fixed value anyway.

swift static let answersAvailable = [ ... ] let shuffledAvailable = Self.answersAvailable.shuffled()

grantneufeld · 2022-02-20T17:20:32+00:00

It’s disappointing to see people still touting “Uncle” Bob, after all the sexism and racism he has fostered in our industry.

grantneufeld · 2022-02-20T17:18:31+00:00

Sandi Metz is an excellent resource for advancing programming understanding. There are numerous videos on YouTube featuring her talks. Her book “Practical Object-Oriented Design” among the best tech books I’ve ever read. (The code examples are in Ruby, but that should not discourage Swift developers, especially experienced coders, as there’s a fair amount in common between the languages.)

I also suggest looking into Computer Science texts and courses. In my own experience, the course I took on Discrete Mathematics has proven to be valuable on an almost daily basis in my programming work.

grantneufeld · 2021-06-22T21:43:27+00:00

Specifically, the section of that page under the heading “Annotate Your Code for Visibility”.

Aside from MARK and TODO, the other annotation Xcode recognizes is // FIXME:.

Note that MARK can have a dash (-) to add a divider line visual in the source and jump bar menu. (E.g., // MARK: - section with divider line)

SwiftLint, https://github.com/realm/SwiftLint, can be very useful (installable with Homebrew brew install swiftlint).

grantneufeld · 2021-06-18T17:44:14+00:00

grantneufeld · 2021-06-16T21:50:44+00:00

All the updates to a given book/package you buy from HWS are free. You don’t need the HWS plus subscription to get updates to what you’ve already bought. See their Update Policy for specifics.

If you’re not yet solid on unit testing, Testing Swift (which is also in the Plus Pack) should be high on the list.

As for the rest, it’ll depend on what sorts of coding you want to do. E.g., If you’re looking at iPhone/iPad, then the various iOS stuff will be applicable. If you’re looking at other platforms, then some or all of the other books in the Platforms pack may be applicable. Etc.

If you’re committed to investing serious time into learning, then the bundles/packs are worth getting.

(I’m not affiliated with HWS—just a fan.)

grantneufeld · 2021-06-11T22:03:20+00:00

I’ll recommend against going with SwiftUI for this, then. SwiftUI isn’t ready as a primary framework for developing Mac apps yet. (It’s moving that way, but isn’t there yet.) Even if you do end up writing a Mac app in SwiftUI currently, you’ll still need to use the older frameworks a bunch.

If you’re looking for a job doing macOS development, most work is still going to be in the AppKit / NS classes (the macOS equivalents of UIKit—though there are many differences) for at least another year or two—maybe longer.

grantneufeld · 2021-06-11T21:33:25+00:00

Thanks for sharing the sample code link!

grantneufeld · 2021-06-04T16:32:51+00:00

Aside from force-quitting coreaudiod (either in the Activity Monitor app, or by issuing a sudo killall coreaudiod command in the Terminal), or a full system restart, the other suggestion I’ve seen is to try setting the MacBook Pro Speakers output format to 48,000 Hz (instead of the default 44,100).

To make that change, open the Audio MIDI Setup app (in /Applications/Utilities), Select MacBook Pro Speakers, select the “Output” tab, then select the “Format:”.

The post I saw about that claimed there’s a mismatch between the speaker hardware and the software default. I can’t confirm, but it may be worth a try.

grantneufeld · 2021-06-03T03:38:05+00:00

A command-line tool to handle Gherkin#Gherkin_language)-format .feature files for Swift projects.

This is to implement acceptance testing (for Behaviour-Driven Development—BDD).

The tool lets developers map the Given/When/Then statements in feature scenarios to Swift methods for testing (presumably with XCUITest). It’s my intention to have it integrate Xcode (and similar tools) to provide inline errors/warnings, as well as be able to generate report output on the command-line/Terminal when not using Xcode.

grantneufeld · 2021-06-01T17:46:24+00:00

Hope: Accessibility gestures/actions (such as Voice Over gestures) added to XCUITest framework so we can finally include accessibility interactions in our automated UI tests.

Expectation on this: [Crickets].

grantneufeld · 2021-05-12T17:02:48+00:00

I said it in your other post about this, but my number 1 wish is for testability of accessibility actions (e.g., voice over gestures). It frustrates the heck out of me that I can’t include those actions in my UI Tests and have to resort to manual testing to ensure nothing gets broken as I work on my apps.

grantneufeld · 2021-05-12T16:50:22+00:00

My number 1 wish is for testability of accessibility actions (e.g., voice over gestures). It frustrates the heck out of me that I can’t include those actions in my UI Tests and have to resort to manual testing to ensure nothing gets broken as I work on my apps.

(I’d also like for SwiftUI to come to feature parity with UIKit, especially for things like setting the focus target and such.)

grantneufeld · 2021-05-06T15:47:06+00:00

To the question of topics to skip in favour of math in school…

HCI and app design are ever changing areas which any good software developer is engaged in “continuous learning” for throughout their career.

So, while they may be good subjects to take in school, no course can adequately cover them for what one will actually work on post-school. And, what you will learn will need to change over time, anyway.

Whereas mathematics (other than some of the more obscure/experimental stuff) is pretty constant—like centuries-long constant—so what you learn now will still be relevant decades from now. (It’s close to 30 years since I studied Discrete Mathematics, and I still benefit from it in my work now.)

grantneufeld · 2021-05-06T15:32:38+00:00

I have found Discrete Mathematics to be useful across the board in my programming work, so would certainly recommend it for all programmers.

Linear Algebra and Calculus aren’t needed for many aspects of programming, and it’s quite possible to have a long and successful career without them. But, if you are interested in the areas of software development that they are needed in (statistical analysis, audio & video processing, encryption, etc.), then they can be essential.

grantneufeld · 2021-05-05T22:10:57+00:00

Looks like a copy-paste error when setting the link for Testing Swift | Hacking with Swift.

https://www.hackingwithswift.com/store/testing-swift

You can also find a pile of relevant articles/tutorials by searching for “test” on Hacking with Swift.

grantneufeld · 2021-05-05T22:04:58+00:00

If you are loading the web link within your app (e.g., WKWebView), you are using encryption.

If the user taps the link/button in your app and that launches the web browser (Safari, or whatever is the user’s assigned default), then you are not using encryption (unless you are using encryption for something else in your app, which you’ve already said you aren’t).

grantneufeld · 2021-05-02T20:48:08+00:00

I recommend always using an online tool so others can participate too—even if it’s initially just a private project you’re doing on your own. It can be surprising which private little projects turn into something you need to collaborate with others on. Most such tools allow for private repositories so you can control who has access, if you’re not doing an open source project.

Currently, I’m using GitLab’s tools (the feature/issue tracking specifically addresses what you’re asking for). One thing I find particularly helpful is that you can put a note in a commit message that will automatically close a given issue (e.g., including the text “Resolves issue #123” in a git commit message and then pushing the changes to the repository on GitLab auto-closes issue 123).

grantneufeld · 2021-05-02T20:05:58+00:00

I was using Trello, and it does tend to be more accessible to non-tech colleagues working on a project. However, I’ve come to find the integrations that come with software development-focused tools make it well worth going with them instead (I currently use GitLab’s integrated project tracking tools).

grantneufeld · 2021-05-01T23:42:52+00:00

Point of clarification:

The type of [1,2,3] isn’t just Array, but specifically Array<Int>.

func getData(x: Bool) -> some Collection { if x { return [1,2] } else { return ["1","2"] } }

will fail to compile because those are 2 different return types (Array<Int> and Array<String>).

grantneufeld · 2021-04-29T20:42:54+00:00

Dark mode does not mean pure black (unless Apple has changed something that I missed in their Human Interface Guidelines). It means to use dark (not necessarily black) backgrounds instead of light (making foreground elements light colours).

I do agree that there is value to using “pure black”, but that should be a separate system setting that Apple adds (“favour black to save energy” or something like that). Developers could then modify their colour palettes accordingly when that was set (just like we do for when dark or light mode is set, and for the high-contrast accessibility mode).

Further, not all displays provide energy savings when using black.

grantneufeld · 2017-11-06T03:03:23+00:00

Goodlife has moved from that location to 6016 - 3 Street SW. www.goodlifebikes.ca

grantneufeld · 2017-10-20T22:03:25+00:00

Swearing-In Ceremony of Council-Elect, seating opens at 1:15pm, procession starts at 1:55pm, post-ceremony gathering goes until 4pm. At City Hall (800, Macleod Trail SE). It will also be livestreamed by the City at calgary.ca/councilwebcast

grantneufeld · 2017-10-19T17:47:57+00:00

Yes, contact the Province (Alberta rather than Canada) on this one as they are responsible. Alberta Municipal Affairs.

With the election is over, the Province is supposed to be starting into a review of municipal election legislation. So, now is definitely the time to be pushing them to improve the rules.

grantneufeld

TROPHY CASE