NSCalendar Additions
Dates. More than any other data type, the gulf between the initial banality of dates and their true, multifaceted complexity looms terrifyingly large. Combining sub-second precision, overlapping units,...
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Quick Look Debugging
Debugging can be an exercise in irony. We create programs that tell our pint-sized supercomputers to complete infinitely varied and incalculable tasks on our behalf, yet when trying to understand those...
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Unmanaged
APIs do more than just exposing functionality to developers. They also communicate values about how the API should be used and why. This communication is what makes naming things one of the Hard Parts...
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Swift Documentation
Code structure and organization is a matter of pride for developers. Clear and consistent code signifies clear and consistent thought. Even though the compiler lacks a discerning palate when it comes...
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XCPlayground
Stop right there! Given the topic, wouldn’t you rather read this article as a Playground? Download Now →Play.Given the association of play with childish exuberance, one could define play as the...
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MirrorType
Reflection in Swift is a limited affair, providing read-only access to a subset of type metadata. While far from the rich array of run-time hackery familiar to seasoned Objective-C developers, Swift’s...
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NSHipster Quiz #7
On June 9th, we organized the third annual WWDC edition of the NSHipster Pub Quiz, with topics ranging from pop cultural trivia to technical pedantry. A huge thanks to Realm, who opened their offices...
View ArticleiOS 9
WWDC 2015 may not have packed quite as many fireworks as its predecessor, but neither was it short on the new and shiny. The introduction of watchOS 2, including a revamped WatchKit, access to the...
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CloudKit
As an iOS developer, if you want to make an application on your own, you sometimes need to write back-end code. Even for the developer who can take that on, there is more than just the code, there’s...
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UIKeyCommand
Adding a new feature to a product is always a tradeoff. Will the added utility of a new feature be enough to offset the added complexity? Shortcuts would seem to side-step this issue—after all, they’re...
View Articleguard & defer
“We should do (as wise programmers aware of our limitations) our utmost best to … make the correspondence between the program (spread out in text space) and the process (spread out in time) as trivial...
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Reader Submissions - New Year's 2016
With 2015 behind us and the new year begun, it’s time again for an NSHipster tradition: reader submissions! As inyear’spast, this installment is chock full of tips and tricks that can help ease your...
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UITextChecker
Make no mistake, a tiny keyboard on a slab of glass doesn’t always lend itself to perfect typing. Whether for accuracy or hilarity, anyone typing on an iOS device notices when autocorrect steps in to...
View ArticleNSHipster Quiz #8
This year’s WWDC edition of the NSHipster Pub Quiz was held on June 14th, once again testing the assembled developers with questions both random and obscure. We’re enormously grateful to Realm, who...
View ArticleNSRegularExpression
“Some people, when confronted with a problem, think ‘I know, I’ll use NSRegularExpression.’ Now they have three problems.”Regular expressions fill a controversial role in the programming world. Some...
View ArticleThe Death of Cocoa
Cocoa is the de facto standard library of Objective-C, containing many of the essential frameworks for working in the language, such as Foundation, AppKit, and Core Data. Cocoa Touch is basically just...
View ArticleReader Submissions - New Year's 2015
As we take a moment to reflect on our experiences over the past year, one thing is clear: 2014 was an incredible year professionally for Apple developers. So much has happened in such a short timespan,...
View ArticleChanging of the Guard
I started NSHipster in the summer of 2012. What began as a snarky writing exercise to capture observations from my daily interactions with Cocoa & Objective-C became a full-time passion for...
View ArticleLong Live Cocoa
It’s the start of a new year—2015, the year of Watch, the first full year for Swift, and a bit of a new start for NSHipster. Before we get caught up in the excitement of new devices and the next beta...
View ArticleJavaScriptCore
An updated ranking of programming language popularity is out this week, showing Swift leaping upward through the ranks from 68th to 22nd, while Objective-C holds a strong lead up ahead at #10. Both,...
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