Andrew Wagner

I built a side project, a silly alarm app, without ever reading the code.

I told Claude Code I was stepping out for a while, and it did some of my best work of the week.

Burnout made it easy to stop reviewing AI's work, the one thing I'm most valuable for.

Years ago I wrote that finishing a book was the hardest thing I'd ever done.

Does separating code into extra extensions and/or modules have a meaningful impact on compile times?

While toying around with an app idea I came across the need to develop my own algorithm and therefore return to Data Structures and Algorithms techniques I learned in college.

While updating my app for the iOS 13 SDK, I came across a change in JSONEncoder that broke some of the logic in my code.

What is the value of result after doing: let result = false && true || true

A couple very common programming patterns, especially in the Apple world, are Singleton and Shared Instance.

Be warned: there may be a bug in the fancier version of Key Value Observering.

I walk through how I solved the question: How do I display a text field directly above the keyboard to prompt the user for some text?

Decree allows you to make HTTP requests in a clear and type-safe way by declaring web services and endpoints.

I recently came across a video showing an “Amazing Crabs Shell Exchange” and realized that it was a perfect example from nature of how seemingly complex (or “amazing”) behavior can emerge from simple governing desires.

A look at the interesting technical challenges I ran into while developing this app.

A list of core skills that are necessary in almost every app.

There are many ways you could choose to host a Swift website or web service, but here I share what has worked well for me.

There are many ways you could choose to host a Swift website or web service, but here I share what has worked well for me.

A list of skills, beyond just the ability to get the job done, every Swift developer should know before they get paid to develop.

The hardest part of developing Server-Side Swift is the incomplete nature of Foundation including some pretty critical basic functionality.

I have been extremely busy so I haven't made the time to write any blog posts.

An in-depth discussion of my experience writing a technical book about learning Swift.

An practical example of how curried functions in Swift can be useful for implementing a logger

My attempt to implement a KVO replacement purely in Swift

A list of key concepts to know when getting started with Swift and links to resources to stay current with its development.

A summary with examples of what an Optional is in Swift

A list with concrete examples of when and when not to use Implicitly Unwrapped Optionals in Swift.

Concrete examples for some cool and practical new features in Swift that will improve the daily lives of iOS and OS X programmers.

Basic value types like String and Int can be secretly converted to Objective-C types like NSString and NSNumber.

Testing asynchronous code in Objective-C can be a real pain unless you make one simple change to the way you program it in the first place.

A more declarative and testable way to display alerts in iOS.

A list with descriptions of the main podcasts that have made me a better developer and keep me informed.

While developing a Rails backend using Devise for user management, I ran into trouble determining a user's status.

The way that I handle my to-do list so that I stay on task with minimal effort.

I hate being constantly distracted by incoming emails.

Being and independent developer can be extremely stressful.

No person is an island.

A series of posts about how to be a better independent developer

A look at how pushing through discomfort is exactly where I want to be.

A system to make version control change sets more understandable at a glance.

A way to make all path changes on a CAShapeLayer be animated automatically.

My theory on how user experience's and code architecture's interests can converge.

A library to allow binding a UITableView directly to a to-many property.

Speech is still a relatively new interface.

An extension to NSObject that adds the allows binding the properties of two different objects together, allowing for much more declarative and understandable code.

Discusses a high level way that we can integrate UX designers better into Agile software practices.

How I came to the decision to finally take the plunge and go independent.