Not great..
...
Not great...

-=-=-

Yesterday I decided to give iOS Dev another try. It's been about a decade since I had to do anything like this, and since the world of iOS moves ahead in leaps and bounds, I'm so insanely out of touch that I figured a "whole new start" would probably be a better scenario than trying to fudge my old dev-kit back into life.

Plus when I tried to run old code it freaked out like there's no tomorrow, with about 170+ alerts popping up in Xcode.. so.. Yeah, maybe start anew, then, huh!?

I started by opening Xcode, clicking the "Swift Game" button, and hoping I could get to grips with Swift. Hey, it's what all the cool kids do, right!?!
I clicked on "OK, download the iOS Devkit" button. Xcode was already using about 30Gb on my Mac, which I thought was ludicrous for a programming language, and now is taking up another 20Gb for .. I honestly don't know why..

50Gb..
Fifty Gig.
That's a tenth of the space on my 512Gb (none-replaceable, by the way) hard drive, simply for a devkit.
That's freakin' nuts!!!!

By contrast, my entire "Everything I've made, all my games, all my music, all my websites which also includes all the uploads that everyone's uploaded to SoCoder over the years... everything, entirely, all of it, since about 1998" folder is 101Gb.

...
I think I need to dig deep into what all these Xcode folders are, and see exactly what I can and can't delete without it all coming crashing down around me

....
*shrugs*

So, I got the template up and running, and then plugged in the iPad to hook it up to the dev-account.
Doing all of the "Arrgh, Certificates, Profiles, etc" guff was incredibly easy, and Xcode managed to take care of it all pretty easily.
True, most of that was because I'd done it before, and everything was still connected to my iCloud account, but I didn't have to fight this time around, and boy was that ever a relief.

Once the iPad had been plugged in, Xcode recognised it, added it to the dev-account, and from there on I can now do tests without it even plugged in, which is nice to know.
(Or at least, I think I can.. We'll see if that carries on like that, or if it randomly breaks at some point!)

Honestly, other than the space it's filled on my already struggling drive, it's actually been relatively easy to get all of the devkit stuff up and running.
Which is SUCH a drastically different experience from doing this, back in 2010, and ... Well, that was about the time I started getting really bad headaches, and ended up in hospital with a brain tumour a couple of years later, so.. ... !!?

And so...

The devkit's up and running, and I can click through the project's many many files. For a template, it's quite the mess!!

Swift is a "make objects, move objects" sort of language, whereas my head tends to go in the "Draw things onto the screen" sort of mindset.
That is, if I want to write "Hello" on the screen, I need to make a "Hello" object and move the "Hello" object to the co-ordinates where it needs to show up.
Normally I'd just Text x,y,"Hello", but now I need to do a bunch more stuff to get to that point.

As such, I think I'm now going to attempt to write myself a new Framework using Swift, and hope that this is all stable enough to then simply write Text x,y,"Hello", and have my framework handle all of the background stuff to make that happen.

That's what I normally do, and I think that's probably the more sensible way to do this.
That way, I can then hopefully reuse the framework, and hopefully make even more things in the future.

.. Though, I guess that really all relies on me getting on with the Swift language at all!

The first challenge, then, will be a Testcard in the language.
I do enjoy making testcards!

Testcards are great for learning how to scale things, how the maths works within the screen's resolution, and things like that.
I've learned a lot about scaling and ratios and good maths practices, whilst optimising the heck out of JSE, so it seems like a relatively decent idea to transfer those skills to a new framework.

Minimise the scaling code to as little as I can, and try to get everything to work as neatly as possible.

The Xcode/Swift template does include some screen-scaling stuff, but even the simple text box can chop things off in some ratios that it doesn't in others, so that definitely needs some fiddling with.

So, I guess that's the plan for the next short while, then.
Code myself a new Framework using Swift, so that I can then code in my style, instead of the "normal" way that Apple thinks I should be coding in.

I mean, I don't "mind" learning everything from scratch, but if I'm doing that learning, I might as well put the effort into then making it more easily workable for myself..
Right!?
Hmmm..

The "Secret Project" game is going to take me bloomin ages, at this rate.

Meanwhile..

Ordered a new Fridge Freezer. When we moved to the Bungalow, we knew there wouldn't be enough space for the giant American-Style fridge freezer that we'd only just bought in 2020. The new house owners got to keep that for free.. Damnit..
So in the interim we bought a small under-counter fridge with a tiny freezer compartment, and it's been ... enough... since we moved in.
But it's getting to the point, now, where we're specifically missing the ability to fit even a small tub of Ice Cream in there!!!!

As such, we ordered a new taller fridge freezer, and it'll be here tomorrow.
We ordered it on Sunday, and both Monday and Tuesday mornings, I got a text message from the company, letting me know it'll be coming on Wednesday.
Oh, gee, thanks for that.
Also, thanks for waking me up two days in a row, especially when I've barely been sleeping as it is.
That's awesome...

...
ugh..
Anyhoo, we're going to have to empty the fridge today. There'll be a lot of fries to eat, and even 6 small yorkshire puddings that need scoffed.

Gonna get fat, today, before the workout of moving two fridges, tomorrow!
It all balances out.


"Cartoon @Derek moves the old fridge out of the kitchen to make space for the new fridge." by #ArtFlow.ai

... Oh.. kay....!!!