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Lovely writeup. Making that webpage must have taken quite some time also? A question out of curiosity. What are your thoughts on re-writing in Swift? If it we

by biehl 3y ago

Lovely writeup. Making that webpage must have taken quite some time also? A question out of curiosity. What are your thoughts on re-writing in Swift? If it were me, I am sure my tech-fingers would itch for a rewrite, but my business hands would slap those thoughts away.

papereditor 3y ago
Thank you! I probably would have to do it at some point if Apple decides to completely deprioritize it. For now, Objective-C even has some benefits. It's more low-level and more hackable. And I think some older APIs are not even available in Swift.
- mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
  Out of curiosity is that a hand crafted page? It is a nice flow with the animations and the graphic call-outs, etc. I'm personally not interested in the Obj-C code snippets but that overall layout of the page, the sidebar ToC, the minimalist design is just really stunning. Also - how did you do the visuals in the "Gnarly Bits" section that split the page/components out into verticals? That is such an amazing way to display the internals of a thing like a page. If these elements could be packaged into a blog theme for whatever blog hosting platforms are popular these days I bet you'd get a bunch of people to purchase. Nice work!
  - papereditor 3y ago
    It's hand-crafted with TailwindCSS, vanilla HTML, and JS. I've worked on it for 2 months part-time. I was hoping it would get people's attention, and so it did. :) The component split is done by hand in Figma with regular screenshots and cropping. I also used a plugin for skewing.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      One nitpick: I dislike the tiny custom scroller. IMO customizing scrollers is almost always a disservice to users.
      - papereditor 3y ago
        Agree! It's a single form-over-function thing that I could not resist not to add. :)
      - busymom0 3y ago
        I was just going to say this too. Site is wonderful except the scrollbar which was very very tiny and barely visible.
        papereditor 3y ago
        I made it expand on hover now.
        busymom0 3y ago
        I think it's still annoying. When reading, I often look at where the scrollbar is to get an idea of how much reading is left. Right now, the scrollbar is so thin that I have to waste time looking for it. On a 34" monitor, it's very annoying.
        papereditor 3y ago
        Fair enough! I've expanded it by default on bigger screens now. :)
        busymom0 3y ago
        A LOT better!
    - pacifika 3y ago
      I’m not sure why but non of the images are animating for me on iPhone 15 plus
      - papereditor 3y ago
        The only reason I can think of is "Low power mode".
toyg 3y ago
Be real: Apple is not going to rewrite MacOs/iOs in Swift. Objective-C will always be there, offering faster and more robust features. Just look at the Microsoft equivalent: yes, C# is good and all, but the hardcore Windows apps are still using (lightly-skinned) VC++ APIs - after almost 25 years since they started flogging .NET. Swift is for the new rubes, bootcamp graduates and so on.
- jshier 3y ago
  They're literally rewriting in Swift right now. Foundation is being rewritten entirely in Swift. All new code is in Swift. All new frameworks are Swift-only. They're using Swift from low level firmware on the Secure Enclave to apps. This is already real.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - sandyarmstrong 3y ago
    Yup, exactly. Swift was specifically designed to replace Objective-C and C++ throughout Apple codebases (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQc9-seU-5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQc9-seU-5k). C# is a totally different story.
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      > C# is a totally different story. Interesting. Can you share more details?
      - sandyarmstrong 3y ago
        Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft, though I wasn't there during the early days of .NET or Windows Longhorn. C# was created as a Java competitor. Although it had great C interoperability, the underlying .NET Framework was still a VM-based runtime with a garbage collector and all the disadvantages that brings. You can probably find various articles (https://longhorn.ms/the-reset/ https://longhorn.ms/the-reset/ is one) discussing attempts to adopt C#/.NET code for Windows Longhorn, which ultimately had to be walked back completely. .NET wasn't purpose-built for writing OS components or working deep inside existing Windows code. Apple learned from this and other examples. The Swift team actively works with teams at Apple deep in native code to make sure they can handle their use cases without performance penalties, and with minimal ergonomic issues. The difference is really about what the stated goals of the language were/are.

by biehl 3y ago

papereditor 3y ago

Thank you! I probably would have to do it at some point if Apple decides to completely deprioritize it. For now, Objective-C even has some benefits. It's more low-level and more hackable. And I think some older APIs are not even available in Swift.

mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
Out of curiosity is that a hand crafted page? It is a nice flow with the animations and the graphic call-outs, etc. I'm personally not interested in the Obj-C code snippets but that overall layout of the page, the sidebar ToC, the minimalist design is just really stunning. Also - how did you do the visuals in the "Gnarly Bits" section that split the page/components out into verticals? That is such an amazing way to display the internals of a thing like a page. If these elements could be packaged into a blog theme for whatever blog hosting platforms are popular these days I bet you'd get a bunch of people to purchase. Nice work!
- papereditor 3y ago
  It's hand-crafted with TailwindCSS, vanilla HTML, and JS. I've worked on it for 2 months part-time. I was hoping it would get people's attention, and so it did. :) The component split is done by hand in Figma with regular screenshots and cropping. I also used a plugin for skewing.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    One nitpick: I dislike the tiny custom scroller. IMO customizing scrollers is almost always a disservice to users.
    - papereditor 3y ago
      Agree! It's a single form-over-function thing that I could not resist not to add. :)
    - busymom0 3y ago
      I was just going to say this too. Site is wonderful except the scrollbar which was very very tiny and barely visible.
      - papereditor 3y ago
        I made it expand on hover now.
        busymom0 3y ago
        I think it's still annoying. When reading, I often look at where the scrollbar is to get an idea of how much reading is left. Right now, the scrollbar is so thin that I have to waste time looking for it. On a 34" monitor, it's very annoying.
        papereditor 3y ago
        Fair enough! I've expanded it by default on bigger screens now. :)
        busymom0 3y ago
        A LOT better!
  - pacifika 3y ago
    I’m not sure why but non of the images are animating for me on iPhone 15 plus
    - papereditor 3y ago
      The only reason I can think of is "Low power mode".

toyg 3y ago

Be real: Apple is not going to rewrite MacOs/iOs in Swift. Objective-C will always be there, offering faster and more robust features. Just look at the Microsoft equivalent: yes, C# is good and all, but the hardcore Windows apps are still using (lightly-skinned) VC++ APIs - after almost 25 years since they started flogging .NET. Swift is for the new rubes, bootcamp graduates and so on.

jshier 3y ago
They're literally rewriting in Swift right now. Foundation is being rewritten entirely in Swift. All new code is in Swift. All new frameworks are Swift-only. They're using Swift from low level firmware on the Secure Enclave to apps. This is already real.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- sandyarmstrong 3y ago
  Yup, exactly. Swift was specifically designed to replace Objective-C and C++ throughout Apple codebases (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQc9-seU-5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQc9-seU-5k). C# is a totally different story.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    > C# is a totally different story. Interesting. Can you share more details?
    - sandyarmstrong 3y ago
      Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft, though I wasn't there during the early days of .NET or Windows Longhorn. C# was created as a Java competitor. Although it had great C interoperability, the underlying .NET Framework was still a VM-based runtime with a garbage collector and all the disadvantages that brings. You can probably find various articles (https://longhorn.ms/the-reset/ https://longhorn.ms/the-reset/ is one) discussing attempts to adopt C#/.NET code for Windows Longhorn, which ultimately had to be walked back completely. .NET wasn't purpose-built for writing OS components or working deep inside existing Windows code. Apple learned from this and other examples. The Swift team actively works with teams at Apple deep in native code to make sure they can handle their use cases without performance penalties, and with minimal ergonomic issues. The difference is really about what the stated goals of the language were/are.