Tag: C++

Apple releases Xcode 15 with Swift 5.9 toolchain.

Xcode 15 includes Swift 5.9 and SDKs for iOS 17, iPadOS 17, tvOS 17, watchOS 10, and macOS Sonoma.

• Swift macro support brings inline expansions and breakpoint debugging in the source editor
• Git staging helps craft your next commit without leaving your code
• String catalogs streamline localization with a single place to view and edit strings
• Bookmarks help organize your favorite locations and searches in your projects
• Test reports provide summary view, testing insights, and video playback for UI automation results
• OSLog offers a structured and customizable logging mechanism in the debug console
• Documentation Preview editor brings real-time preview for DocC content
• Archive workflows streamline distribution with simplified export and upload to TestFlight and the App Store

Mac App Store – Xcode

Swift 5.9 is now officially released for supported platforms.

This is a major new release that adds an expressive macro system to the language and introduces support for integrating Swift into C++ codebases through bidirectional interoperability.

It also introduces parameter packs, an improved expression evaluator while debugging, enhanced crash handling, Windows platform improvements, and more.

Swift Blog

Mac App Store: Xcode

Release Notes: Xcode 15 Release Notes

Swift Blog: Swift 5.9 Released

It's winter here in Bay Area today (it even snows somewhere here), so let's grab some warm beverage and get going.

• Let's start with some old articles on C++ interoperability – How to create a Swift Package from a C++ library and Getting started with Swift-C++ interop by Konstantin Semianov;
  
  
• And couple articles on how to make use of layout system in SwiftUI by the same author – Building a wrapping HStack with the SwiftUI Layout protocol and Building a hexagonal grid with the SwiftUI Layout protocol;
  
  
• Ricky Mondello shares security considerations on Twitter's 2FA changes – Twitter’s Decision to Limit SMS 2FA is Dangerous;
  
  
• Show chart annotations on hover in Swift Charts by Natalia Panferova covers adding interactions to charts;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov continues his series on charts – Mastering charts in SwiftUI. Legends.;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese provides guide on view mask usage in SwiftUI – Creating Animations with SwiftUI’s Mask View Modifier;
  
  
• The Composable Architecture best practices by Krzysztof Zabłocki – The Composable Architecture - Best Practices;
  
  
• Arbitrary SwiftUI Linear Gradient Rotation by David Smith goes through gradients in SwiftUI;
  
  
• And another take by him on how to use randomness in the apps – Finding Beauty in Randomness and Nature;
  
  
• Jordan Morgan covers important aspects of accessibility – Building For Voice Control;
  
  
• Speeding Up Scanner in Swift by Michael Tsai collects information on text parsing improvements in Swift;
  
  
• And couple of articles by Jesse Squires – How to find and fix premature view controller loading on iOS and Xcode tip: sharing breakpoints across projects.

Let's finish with interesting video on design process by David Smith.

And that is it for today. See you next week!

Apple releases C++ wrapper for Metal.

Metal-cpp is a low-overhead C++ interface for Metal that helps developers add Metal functionality to graphics apps, games, and game engines that are written in C++.

Apple Developer

Highlights:

• Drop in C++ alternative interface to the Metal Objective-C headers.
• Direct mapping of all Metal Objective-C classes, constants and enums to C++ in the MTL C++ namespace.
• No measurable overhead compared to calling Metal Objective-C headers, due to inlining of C++ function calls.
• No usage of wrapper containers that require additional allocations.
• Identical header files and function/constant/enum availability for iOS, iPadOS, macOS and tvOS.
• Backwards compatibility: All bool MTL::Device::supports...() functions check if their required selectors exist and automatically return false if not.
• String (ErrorDomain) constants are weak linked and automatically set to nullptr if not available.