Learning Swift

17/31 daily posts as part of WeblogPoMo2024. Expect (and forgive) more words and less editing.

I've spent the day diving in to the Swift programming language that runs all modern Apple apps.

So far it's really similar to JavaScript which is great. Computer languages are a lot like spoken languages: if you already speak Italian, Spanish isn't far away. But Hungarian or Finnish are totally different.

Fortunately JavaScript and Swift feel like Mediterranean cousins.

I'm using Hacking with macOS: SwiftUI Edition by Paul Hudson and really enjoying it.

I'm looking forward to the bit where we start to build a UI; so far we're just in text-function mode. One step at a time.

I haven't given this deep thought...

This might be a rash decision. To write an app. But watching Lucy create her index in Apple Notes the other day really made me realise how much I could do if I had my own thing.

I think this deserves its own thing. And yes, this means yet another app. In the crowded PKM market.

But actually I'm not trying to compete with the Obsidians or the Notions. I made a decision a while ago to focus my efforts on the tools that anyone can use. Not just the PKM nerds. Obsidian isn't that.

I want my app to sit in this space; where someone who has no idea what 'PKM' is, but has a bunch of files on their desktop, could start to use it and have it be immediately useful, familiar, comforting.

That probably means design over features. Simple to start.

But let's see what SwiftUI can do first, and then think about app design.