In which a method is presented for reliably building static libraries with subprojects in Xcode, and it is suggested that this method, combined with Git submodules or other similar mechanisms, provides the best way to share libraries, frameworks, or other code between projects.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it’s a useful thing to be able to share code between projects. On the small end of the scale, you might have created some nice views, or text processing classes, and want to be able to include them in multiple apps. On the larger end, perhaps you produce …

This week, I’ve been attending NSConference. It’s a wonderful event. People like me - by which I mean people who enjoy doing and are passionate about similar things to the things I enjoy doing and am passionate about - from all over the world congregate in a conference centre near Reading, England for three days. We talk about these things we enjoy doing, and are passionate about. It takes place in a soulless modern ‘conference venue’, miles from anywhere; the sort of place any sane person would usually find depressing. That’s really part of its genius, though: attendees are …

Marco Arment has written a provoking article about Apple App store ratings. I haven’t really looked at the situation since my original (and, at the time, infamous) brush with the Apple law over the rating of Eucalyptus. As you may remember, it’s rated, at Apple’s request, 17+ for “Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes”, because users can access Victorian textual translations of, for example, the Kama Sutra from it. How are other book reading apps rated? I took a sample of the popular ones:

• iBooks: 4+
• Kindle: 4+
• Blio: 4+
• Nook: 4+
• Stanza: 4+
• Wattpad: 9+
• Kobo: 12+

In case you’re …

I posted a question to the Apple Developer Forums today. This is almost always an exercise in frustration, and I think I have an idea why. It’s because web forums are inherently a ‘pull’ service.

It used to be Apple ran developer mailing lists (and they still do - Cocoa Dev, for example, is still thriving), but they’re now pushing people to use the developer forums instead, and not creating mailing lists for new technologies.

A mailing list is easy to ‘hang out’ on - just sign up, and the emails are ‘pushed’ to you. Normal human compulsions then …

This graffiti is still up on the bottom of the Dean Bridge. It’s been there for longer than most graffiti survives. You can see how scrubbed the bottom of the bridge ‘underneath’ the bridge is - that’s from repeated swift graffiti removals by the council in the past.

Despite my better intentions - I know that it’s really the defacing of a historic monument - I can’t help but smile every time I run past. For a moment I believe that I’m part of the world of Sherlock, and that I also am one of a small band of …

In October 2011 I gave a talk at the inaugural NSScotland conference in Edinburgh entitled “An iOS Developer’s OpenGL Primer”. It was an attempt to introduce iOS developers to the world of OpenGL by starting with what must be happening - pixels being displayed on screen - and working up through the layers of abstraction to UIKit. I wanted not to “teach OpenGL” (that could take up a lecture series…), but to make OpenGL seem understandable by explaining away the magic.

I promised then to put the slides online and, almost half a year - and one iOS release - …

“Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the ‘alternative vote’ system instead of the current ‘first past the post’ system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?”

If you’ve spoken to me recently (or know me on Twitter or Facebook), you’ll know that I’ve been campaigning for a “Yes” vote in the referendum tomorrow on whether Britain should adopt the Alternative Vote. This is the first time I’ve been ‘politically involved’ in anything beyond voting, and it’s an interesting experience - equal parts uplifting and depressing, I’d say. I thought it would be a good idea …