Side Project Spotlight

This week, Kotaro's struggles with UI block leads into a discussion about the primary views that need to be updated, some priorities for the UX, and because this is a side project, we dream big about extra features before we've even gotten the core done, including A-Hole mode, the perfect way to motivate yourself when positive reinforcement fails. Considering our slow progress, maybe we should implement that feature first! In the end, Kotaro is back on track with his UI design tasks while Aaron and Steve continue architecting the Core Data + MVVM of it all. PRs were being pushed right after this recording!

## Topics Discussed:

- 20 episodes!

- Side Project Saturday IRL!

- Kotaro’s Mea Culpa

- What’s the Primary View Hierarchy?

    - Goals

    - Sprints

    - Reports

- Work Assignments & Schedule Update

- A-Hole Mode

- UI Ideas

    - Sprints

    - Goals

    - Reports

- UX Priorities

    - Lightweight

    - Logging

    - Onboarding

- Next Sprint

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

Progress has been made on the app and as we move beyond simple prototyping into trying to make a functional MVP for other people to eventually use, how we structure our code becomes more important. This week, we discuss the MVVM architecture pattern and how well it does and doesn't get along with Core Data. Then, Kotaro leads us on a UI/UX design discussion, partially inspired by "the most satisfying checkbox."

## Topics Discussed:

- PickleJar Update

- Testing iCloud Sync

    - Multiple simulators signed into iCloud

- MVVM + Core Data Discussion

    - CS193p

        - https://cs193p.sites.stanford.edu

    - Translating core data models to structs?

    - FetchRequest wrapper vs View Model

    - Map Into structs

        - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehV2gp5uVhs

    - Sync is hard

    - Custom environment variables

- UI/UX Design Discussion

    - Tags

    - Habits (ADA Winner)

        - https://www.andy.works/words/the-most-satisfying-checkbox

    - UI Focus

    - Sprints UI

    - Timeline Review

    - iPhone vs iPad vs Mac UX

- Next

    - UI Core Mechanics (Kotaro)

    - Basic Charts view to explore (Steve)

    - ViewModel fleshed out (Steve + Aaron)

    - Tests!

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

Just in time for the weekend plane ride to Cupertino, it's our WWDC22 speculation episode! We talk about some of things we hope to see at this year's WWDC including new hardware, iOS 16 features, and dev tool improvements. Plus, Kotaro provides a bonus tip about how you can glimpse the future by subscribing to the Swift Evolution mailing list. If you'd like to join us at our virtual keynote watch party, RSVP and join our Slack! Details are on our website at http://phillycocoa.org or at https://www.meetup.com/PhillyCocoaHeads/.

Be sure to check out our Not a Sponsor this week: SwiftBySundell.com

## Topics Discussed:

- What is WWDC?

    - In-person vs virtual

    - Alt conferences

- Speculation

    - Hardware

        - M2 Mac Pro

        - AR Glasses Dev Kit

        - Joy-con style controllers for iPhone/iPad

    - iOS 16

        - New era of UI design?

        - Theming support?

        - Mac Password Management App?

    - SwiftUI 4 

        - Becomes The Way to do Apple dev

        - Native ARView?

        - Native support for PencilKit?

        - NavigationLink improvement?

        - Native Siri Intents?

        - Keyboard/Text fields improvements?

    - Core Data Updates

        - New API?

        - NoSQL style db?

        - Continue improving SwiftUI integration

        - Better CloudKit support in Xcode

    - AR

        - Commitment that AR glasses are coming and timeframe?

        - Reality Composer features

    - Glimpse the future on the Swift Evolution mailing list

        - Concurrency

        - Regex support

- Not a Sponsor: SwiftBySundell.com

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

This week, we return to our Todo App project. Coding has stalled because we didn't have a specific enough idea of exactly WHAT the app is supposed to be all about. Problem definition is hard and this week Steve presents his thoughts on how to move forward based on his research into some existing digital and paper habit tracking systems. Then we sketch some specific app feature requirements where we coalesce around the idea of tracking something akin to "epics," provide positive reinforcement via widgets, and support Siri Intents for use in the Shortcuts app.

Be sure to check out our Not a Sponsor this week: the TIL with Mohammad blog at https://mfaani.com

Topics Discussed:

- Todo App Progress Updates / Blockers

    - Wayward Kotaro: CloudKit Shared Data Containers & (Not) Getting Things Done

    - Steve: Did research!

    - Aaron: Busy with work.

- How to find the time and motivation to do a side project

- Todo Research Discussion

    - Thomas Frank Video: https://youtu.be/0bxIg3M_MHY

    - "Martin System" Article: https://collegeinfogeek.com/paper-habit-tracker/

    - Strides app: https://www.stridesapp.com

- App Design Discussion

    - iOS: Check off items

    - Mac: Center of attention, graphs, planning

    - Epic tracking

    - Positive reinforcement via widgets

    - Siri Intents for Shortcuts support

- Next Sprint:

    - UI Design Prototype

    - Data Model Update

- Not A Sponsor: https://mfaani.com - TIL with Mohammad Blog

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

The app is making slow progress and we will have more to say about that soon, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk with our special guest this week, Mohammad Faani. Mohammad is an active member of PhillyCocoa and joins us to discuss his journey to becoming an iOS developer as well as how both Stack Overflow and his new TIL blog help him focus and shape his own developer journey.

Topics Discussed:

- Introducing Mohammad Faani

- Mohammad’s origin story

    - Mohammad’s background

    - Online courses to learn development

    - StackOverflow

    - Meetups

    - Joining Philly CoocaHeads

    - PhillyCocoa book club

- Unit Testing In the Real World

- Mohammad’s TIL blog

    - Why blog?

    - How to choose topics?

    - How Stack Overflow and blogging can be complementary

- What’s next for Mohammad?

- Where to find Mohammad?

    - Website: mfaani.com

    - Stack Overflow: @mfaani

    - PhillyCocoa Slack: @mfaani

    - Twitter: @mfaani

    - GitHub: @mfaani

- Not a Sponsor: ReCaf.app

- Mohammad’s Words of Wisdom

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

This week we finally reveal our idea for our second app on this podcast and it's a macOS todo app! I know, very original! Listen in to our unscripted discussion as we talk about why we chose this concept for the app, some theories around todo systems, and eventually coalesce around some broad goals for features as well as a timeline for a Test Flight prototype.

## Topics Discussed:

- Introducing our next side project: a macOS Todo app!

- How do we do todos?

    - Steve: Omnifocus, Todo, Calendar

    - Aaron: Calendar

    - Kotaro: Reminders, 3-4 core things to do that day in notes app

- Theory Discussion

    - Pickle Jar Theory

    - Kotaro’s Theory

- Broad App Goals

    - What would make this app useful for us?

    - Kotaro

        - Lightweight

        - Pattern reporting (task completion)

        - iOS version for quick task check-off

        - Recurring tasks you want to do every day

        - CloudKit/Core Data sync

        - iPad app?

        - One-offs 

        - Siri Intent

    - Steve

        - Habit tracker

        - Historical trends

    - Aaron

        - Fitness training goals

            - e.g. Training Peaks app

        - Goal tracking

- Feature Summary Discussion

    - Record when you did the task or assume you did it at the time of checking off?

    - Epics vs Tasks

    - Notifications are not annoying (summary info, for example)

    - Widgets

    - Default view is stuff we already did. 

    - Bucket List app, checking off towards a goal and get summaries

- Timeline for MVP

    - Release before WWDC: 1.5 month project

    - Aaron’s Scope Suggestion: Help us prioritize WWDC work

- How do we break this up?

    - We already created an app, Trello, GitHub repo, icon

    - 4 sprints of 2 weeks

        - Strong prototype by 4th sprint at least

        - Test Flight

    - First Sprint:

        - Basic Todo Task UI

        - Basic Core Data data model

        - CloudKit sync

        - Mac to iOS syncing

- Not a Sponsor: Fin Timer

- Kotaro’s New Outro!

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

After we recorded this week's podcast, we did decide on our next side project and it's not what you might expect. It has to do with pickles. Stay tuned for info about that next time! This week, we delve into the side project "failure" bin to talk about overcoming the many challenges to completing side projects and how even when we move on from one, it was still worth doing.

## Topics Discussed:

- Pre-Show: 

    - Stocks and studio displays

    - The Death of Kotaro’s Side Project Dividend Calc

- KanjiLove: A Passion Project that Took Multiple Attempts

- Fav10: Learn SwiftUI, CoreData, & CloudKit

- A Customer of One

- The Daily Chron Podcast: Learn a New Non-Dev Skillset

    - https://www.dailychronpodcast.com

- Video Killed the Podcast Star?

- Side Projects are building blocks

- Kotaro and Aaron’s Big O Apple TV app

- How to finish a side project

    - Keep scope small enough to not be overwhelmed, but big enough to still be useful

    - Hold yourself accountable by building in public like with KanjiLove

    - Work with other people

- When to move beyond v1.0 on a successful side project?

    - Revisit to learn new things

    - Stuff you had on the back burner 

    - A platform for your learnings

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

We have another special guest this week! Sean Najera, Senior Mobile Developer at Nuuly, joins the Pod to talk about his experiences using Flutter before discussing his new SwiftUI Navigator library that fixes a big missing feature in Apple's framework. There is also some love for C#, a look at the waves of Android development over the years, the evolution of languages like Dart and Swift, and new this week, a special post-show where Steve asks the question that only Aaron can answer, "What is a table?" This was a fun one.

## Topics Discussed:

- Welcome Sean Najera to the podcast

- An Infinite Closet

- Riding the Waves of Android Development

- Flutter & Declarative/Reactive UIs

- Flutter Challenges

- Should you still use Flutter today for a cross-platform app?

- C# Rocks

- Flutter’s rendering engine

- Dart, Swift, C#, and Language Evolution

- Sean’s Navigator Library for SwiftUI

- Wrap-Up

- Post-show: What is a table?

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

With all of us getting busy with work, we are using this opportunity to experiment with the podcast format and bring a spotlight to other developers in the community. Our first guest to the POD is Arpit Mathur, creator of GroceryTimer.app. This app was our Not a Sponsor last time and since it was recently released, we thought it would be fun to discuss the how's and why's of its creation. Arpit is always a pleasure to converse with and we delve into several interesting aspects of the app's creation, design, and technologies as well as how Arpit is experimenting with the Virtual Meetup format of Philly's Google Developer Group using tools like Twitter Spaces. It's a fascinating and entertaining conversation. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Download GroceryTimer.app!

## Topics Discussed:

- Welcome Arpit Mathur to the podcast

- @GDGPhiladelphia

- Virtual Meetups with Twitter Spaces

- Slack Huddles 

- GroceryTimer.app Origin Story

- Building an App with Flutter

- GroceryTimer.app Design Process

- Flutter and Platform Specific Considerations

- The Present & Future of Widgets

- The Future of GroceryTimer.app

- Future Arpit Side Projects

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.