About to Take a Break

It has been a grueling week and by grueling I mean a pleasantly full week.  I have maintained my goal of trying to fit three days of SwiftUI into each day.  I have tried not to compromise learning the material to keep that pace.  I have reviewed the material, multiple times for items that are new and strange to me.  I have done the challenges completely, always attempting them on my own, but greatly appreciating that videos by Paul Hudson exist for HWS+ members.  I have spent time adding my own flairs to the apps where they have captivated me.  I have also been working with my programming/study partner.  I am so glad that we are chatting regularly again and that he is just as enthralled by Paul's lessons, as I am.

With a productive few days behind me, I'll now be taking a break.  Family is in town for the upcoming Holiday and my time will be devoted to them.  For those of you who celebrate it, I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

(LU7)

Connected Again

As of last night, it had been two weeks since I had heard from my programming/study partner.  That was the Monday right before the election.  Between his interview scheduled on Wednesday and the results of the election, I figured he might be struggling and needing to regroup, so I let him know I was here when he was ready to reach out and to take care of himself.  I finally checked on him again via text to ask for proof of life and again let him know I was here for him.  He called me right back and, as I suspected, he was really hurting after the election results.  We chatted for a while and then agreed to work together tonight.  

After I got totally sidetracked the previous weekend tracking down an Apple bug, I made relatively slow but steady progress through the following week and weekend.  I am currently on day 40 of 100 Days of SwiftUI.  While way behind my original schedule, I have made some solid progress.  I especially like my resulting Word Scramble game, project 6.  

I made a great many tweaks, along the way and really have just one more major bug to resolve.  I generate all possible words that are makable from the source word with length 3-8.  I then run that list through Apple's UITextChecker() to determine actual legitimate English words.  This can take a couple of seconds at the start of every new game.  I need to make sure that happens completely in the background so I don't block the main thread.  Also, for the record one more time, UITextChecker() sucks.  It is reasonably fast, but it is really really bad at doing its one purpose, determining if a word is an actual word.

Anyway, after Word Scramble, I had great fun with the animation module.  SwiftUI is pretty amazing at generating some truly attractive effects with very little code and Paul Hudson does a great job highlighting that strength.

(LU6)

Going Strong and Then I Hit a Bump

So I was actually ahead of my self-imposed schedule.  I was really happy with my results and wanted to fix a few things and add a feature or two.  Then I hit a snag on 100 Days of SwiftUI, Project 5.  I'll go briefly into it here, but follow the link below for the full explanation and hopefully some helpful insights from others.

In an effort to add more visual clues when entering words for Project 5, WordScramble, I tried to change the color of the text in the TextField if the word being typed changed from invalid to valid and vice-versa.  The TextField ignored all efforts to make any style change to the text.  I could make changes to the appearance of the TextField but not to the text using such modifiers as .foregroundStyle(), .fontWeight(), and others.

https://www.hackingwithswift.com/forums/100-days-of-swiftui/unusual-behavior-when-trying-to-change-the-style-of-the-text-in-a-swiftui-textfield/28414

From here, I'm going to add a workaround for the above problem in WordScramble, add a feature to decide whether to keep the word successfully entered or to clear it, remove all the debugging code, file a bug with Apple, and move on!

Still no word from my programming study partner.

(LU5)

A Productive Few Days Despite Current Events

So, a great amount has happened over the past four day.  I studied a great many 100 Days of SwiftUI lessons and I'm back on track. I worked with my study partner on Sunday and Monday (more on that below).  I did a whole bunch of testing for a new app from Paul Hudson, which he will release soon. Thank you for the opportunity, Paul.  And experienced a disastrous election cycle (from my perspective).

On the SwiftUI front, I have completed everything through Day 25.  I made some great updates and UI fixes to my projects, especially GuessThatFlag.  I am now working on Day 26 and hoping to complete Day 28 before bedtime.

Here are some screenshots from GuessTheFlag:

My study partner has gone silent again.  I wanted to hear about his coding interview yesterday, but there are a great many things that could be impacting him (the election, the interview, family issues), so I'm leaving him alone until he is ready to reach out.

(LU4)

Big Push

So I reached out to my accountability partner last night.  And they reached back.  Excellent.  It would be so much worse if I had just gotten silence. 

So, as I kind of thought, they were struggling with their situation of having been laid off from their job.  There are a lot of feelings of anger and probably self-doubt.  It is good to sort through all that before rushing into finding another job.  Remember, getting laid-off says much more about the company's situation than it does about you, your abilities, and your worth.

Anyway, my partner is ready to get to work, and begin learning SwiftUI starting today.  Unfortunately, he is much more focused on a coding exam he has coming up on Wednesday than working on the fundamentals of SwiftUI.  So, I convinced him to get started on SwiftUI and I would find him a tutorial to work on in a day or so to prepare him for the programming test he thinks is coming.  It is a start.  

For me, I continue to push forward, accelerating the pace from the past week, as it is a weekend with no external commitments.   Also, I'm hoping my partner will inspire me, which should also increase my pace.

 (LU3)

One Week Into Leveling Up

 So, my accountability partner and I started 100 Days of SwiftUI a week ago.  My goal was three "days" per day.  That has not been the case.  I am averaging two per day and actually a hair less than that.  I have just completed my seventh day, and I have completed 13 days of SwiftUI.  So, how is my accountability partner doing?  I don't know.  They have gone silent.  After I post this, I will check in with them again and see if I get a response.

(LU2)