‘Rustle in Feilding’ – Cat mural by SwiftMantis at Manawatū Street Art Festival in Manawatu-Wanganui, New Zealand.

It's been a while since I've seen it mentioned, so if you did happen to pick up a Kindle in the sales this week (👀), check out the Standard Ebooks project for hundreds of public domain works with good metadata, proofreading, and nice cover art: https://standardebooks.org

Vibe coding is irresponsibly building software through dice rolls, not caring what code is produced What about when engineers at the top of their game use AI tools responsibly to accelerate their work? I propose "vibe engineering"! (with my tongue only partially in my cheek) […]

Today I saw someone toot, in dismay, people are posting their everyday life to Mastodon when they could simply buy a diary for $1.99. I can't stop thinking about this. What if this is all they have? What if they're isolated with or without people in their life? What if the only kind word they […]

It's my birthday! 🎉 For the next week, you can get my books: macOS by Tutorials & Escape from Tutorial Hell for 64% of the usual price. This deal only gets worse as I age, so get in now while I'm still young 😛 For details and sample chapters, check out […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

This satirical blog post really illustrates the problem with a lot of technical writing. Amazing technical writing is so good and then everything else reads like this https://anniemueller.com/posts/how-i-a-non-developer-read-the-tutorial-you-a-developer-wrote-for-me-a-beginner

If you’re thinking of getting an Apple clear MagSafe case for your iPhone 17 Pro, be aware that it is only clear in places. I assumed it would be the same as the Apple clear MagSafe case I’ve had on my blue 12 mini for years and which actually is clear except […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

My first ever conference talk is now online: http://youtu.be/dSoxINozBKU Based on my “Escape from Tutorial Hell” book but made more language-independent to suit the PyConAU audience. #pyconau

Brisbane, August 26-30, see you next #pyconau! (That's Wednesday-Sunday with main conf Thu-Sat)

Lightning talk signups for today are open! Submit a lighting talk or something! QR codes in the hallway are still valid-ish! #pyconau

By this time next week I'll be able to breathe again after giving my first ever conference talk. If you're at PyConAU next weekend, please say hi. And if you haven't bought a ticket yet, here's a link that gets you 10% off […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

In 2014 at an Apple shareholders meeting, a person called Tim Cook said “When I think about doing the right thing, I don't think about an ROI. If that's a hard line for you, then you should get out of the stock.” I wonder what happened to that person. Wish he was still CEO of Apple. #apple #timcook

I have come to realise that so many of the problems I have with SwiftUI in macOS are caused by NavigationSplitView: FB20114967 Sorting a table - crashes when inside a NSV: FB20056190 Customising a toolbar - crashes when using an NSV: FB20097446 Also, updates not happening and various other […]

If anyone has any connections inside Apple, please could you ask them to look at FB20056190. In a SwiftUI app (only tested on Mac), if you have a TableView inside a NavigationSplitView, adding sort capabilities crashes the app on the first reverse sort. Removing the NavigationSplitView fixes […]

I think the Vibecoding reddit has accidentally stumbled on the best description of vibecoding: It's "roleplay for guys [it is always guys] who want to feel like hackers without doing the hard part". (Source […] [Original post on tldr.nettime.org]

As promised in my SwiftUI for Mac 2025 article, here is a more detailed article about SwiftUI's new WebView. https://troz.net/post/2025/swiftui-webview/ The SwiftUI team have done an amazing job on this, and I can't wait to start using it in my apps and books. #swift #swiftui #webview

If you're thinking of buying a ticket for PyCon AU 2025 which starts on 12th September in Melbourne, you need to order before 10th August if you want a T-shirt. Use my referral link here to get a 10% discount: https://pretix.eu/pyconau/2025/redeem?voucher=SPKR10-34B388RD4AQPPF86 #pyconau #pycon

I have just published my almost-annual article on the new features of SwiftUI and Swift as they apply to Mac apps: https://troz.net/post/2025/swiftui-mac-2025/ I'm not using HTTP Cats this year, but the icon has a cat, so all is well. #macOS #swiftui #swift #wwdc #wwdc2025

I am giving a talk at PyCon AU 2025 in Melbourne in September. As you all know, I am more into Swift than Python, but I'm giving a talk based on my last book: "Escape from Tutorial Hell" https://troz.net/books/escape/ If you'd like to get tickets at 10% off, please use this referral link […]

That's 5D-educational chess. #fuckgenai #chatgpt #genaisuckscameldong

Hey "seniors": Ask "stupid questions" where your juniors can see you asking them and getting answers from other people. Don't make juniors feel alone in not knowing something and being the only ones asking for help.

My ManReader app that provides a GUI for reading Mac man pages is 50% off during #indieappsales https://troz.net/manreader/

Since I released my new book "Escape from Tutorial Hell", I've realised that it could be valuable to students and teachers. To facilitate this, if you email [email protected] from your .edu address, giving me your name, where you are studying, and what you are […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Over the weekend, I received a wonderful review for my "Escape from Tutorial Hell" book. For people who already own it, I'd really appreciate it if you gave it a rating or review through your Gumroad library.  And if you don't already own it, check out the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Scientists stumble upon mind-blowing material that can produce water from thin air: 'Never been seen before' Almost half of the world's population could be living in areas of high water stress by 2030, and water scarcity could lead to over 700 million people being displaced from arid or semiarid […]

I installed the beta of macOS Tahoe and found the new look to be a bit confronting. Then I went away for a few days. When I cam back, I thought it looked great! So if you are on the fence, just give it some time. #macos

delighted to announce that my new zine "The Secret Rules of the Terminal" is out today!! You can get it for $12 USD here: https://wizardzines.com/zines/terminal

It's early days yet in the Apple beta cycle and I'm not totally up-to-speed with all the changes, but I wrote up my impressions from WWDC 2025. https://troz.net/post/2025/wwdc_2025/ #apple #wwdc #wwdc2025

Escape from Tutorial Hell is now available! Read all about it and check out a free sample at https://troz.net/post/2025/new-book:-escape-from-tutorial-hell/ Buy it from Gumroad at https://sarahreichelt.gumroad.com/l/iqdry If you bought the pre-release, you […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

My editor has zoomed across the finish line so I will release Escape from Tutorial Hell tomorrow. You have 24 hours to get it at the discounted price! All the details and a sample chapter are available here […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

If you struggle using Instruments, I’m writing a book on it that may help. https://swift-dev-journal.kit.com/instruments-book I also have an article that introduces Instruments. https://swiftdevjournal.com/measuring-your-apps-memory-usage-with-instruments/ […]

I’ve just released version 0.2 of my Escape from Tutorial Hell book. This now contains the first 3 of 6 sections. If you bought the book already, you should have received an email. You can download the update through your Gumroad library. You can read all the details and a sample chapter at […]

My editor has been hard at work, so I am able to do a second pre-release of my new book: Escape from Tutorial Hell, this time with 3 of the 6 sections. I'll be releasing this version tomorrow, at which point I'll raise the pre-release price from US$35 to […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Happy #pride

As a developer on the App Store, you get to choose where and with whom you want to do business, as the world changes. For example, my apps have not been available in Russia, Belarus, or Israel for some time, and are highly unlikely to return to those markets. If there are things happening in […]

I see some people reporting problems with Xcode 16.4 but it solved a problem for me. I was holding off the pre-release of my book "Escape from Tutorial Hell" because 16.3 had a bug that crashed a playground the used JSON decoding. So please don't try to use Xcode 16.3 with any playground in the […]

Escaping from tutorial hell is an interesting topic for a book. The post contains a table of contents so you can see if the book would help you. https://mastodon.social/@troz/114588381035983193

I've written a new book called Escape from Tutorial Hell.  The book is complete, but not fully edited, so I'm offering a pre-release deal. For US$35, you get the first two of six sections, and you'll get the complete book when it comes out late in June. Wait […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I am primarily a Mac dev but I do have a few iOS apps. Apple has just told me I have to update one because it’s been 3 years since the last update. Anyway, this app uses LocationServices and I can’t get this to work in the iPhone Simulator. It works fine on my phone. I feel like I’ve seen some […]

Do you get frustrated when you search for Mac development sites and articles and find only iOS development material? If so, I put together a list of Mac development resources. https://swiftdevjournal.com/resources-for-learning-mac-development/ #macdev

Be gracious when someone points out a dumb error that you made. Especially when it comes from someone whom you respect. They're doing it because *they like you*, and because they pay attention to stuff that you do.

With WWDC coming up soon, I've written an article with my ideas on how Apple could improve their declining relations with third-party developers: https://troz.net/post/2025/apple_dev_rel/ If you have any further ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them. #apple #wwdc

I recently realised that the Apple's Books app had a problem with my macOS by Tutorials book and was only displaying the visible portion of each chapter and not paging to the rest. Research revealed this to be an old bug in Books that was fixed about 3 years […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Customizing macOS windows using SwiftUI enhances user experience by changing backgrounds, toolbar visibility,... https://wesleydegroot.nl/blog/Customizing-macOS-windows #blog #programming #iosdev #swiftlang

I've just released an update to Man Reader - my Mac app that provides a GUI for reading man pages. All the details about the update are here: https://troz.net/post/2025/man-reader-2.1/ but the main feature of this release is that it stops the app from […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Recently, I was working with units and unit conversions in Swift. After a while, I then remembered that Swift has a built-in structure for doing this: `Measurement`. This is so good and so under-appreciated that I thought it deserved its own article: https://troz.net/post/2025/swift-measurements/

I've just pushed out a minor update for the HTML version of macOS by Tutorials. Somewhere in the previous update, the code copy button stopped working but it's back now. There are no changes to the text, but if you read using the HTML version, get this update […] [Original post on mastodon.social]