Issue 236
Sep 10, 2024

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This week, I’m fully focused on RocketSim again, and this will be the first thing I’ll try out. If you’re working on a project with several modules, this can be quite a time saver.

The Adapty team interviewed me about my journey from corporate to going indie. I’ll touch on the peculiarities of being an indie app developer compared to hired labor based on my own experience, and, most importantly, highlight several 8 aspects one should consider before going indie.

If you ask me, there aren’t enough Swift Charts tutorials. Therefore, I was happy to see this one, which explains how to create a GitHub contribution graph.

Predicate expressions for SwiftData are new in iOS 18 and allow you to create aggregate queries to, for example, fetch the min, max, sum, or average of a property.

Some hidden features of Swift are great, but the autoclosure in this example can lead to quite nasty SwiftUI bugs. Make sure you’re aware!

This week's anonymously submitted question is:

This is a great question that covers something many of you may run into. For some, it’s already challenging to step up to leadership in general, let alone convince them about a technical decision.

Therefore, this question’s answer is two-fold. First up: dare to speak with your leadership. I’ve always believed that leadership is equal to me: they’re people, too. You could be surprised how easily you can grab a coffee with them as many of them struggle with the same problem the other way around: how to connect with the teams below? 

Different people, different leaderships: some are just really hard to work with no matter what you do. The key here is not to assume so and to verify your assumption. Start a conversation, make it an easy one: “How was your weekend?” or “Good morning, how are you?”. These simple questions come with no pressure, make you kind (you’re interested), and often lead to opening up doors for further conversations.

Now, once you’ve found yourself comfortable speaking with your leadership, it’s time for a more serious conversation. Whether you’re remote or in-person, I’d make sure to prepare yourself with a good story. If you can’t come up with actual proof of the technical decision yourself, there’s no way you can convince your leadership. 

This always reminds me of Kevin de Bruyne, a famous football player who negotiated his contract using data. He managed to get a much better deal by simplifying and clarifying all numbers. I believe the same is true for technical decisions: how much time will it cost? How much time is saved? How does this lead to a better product?

It’s a convincing game requiring objective statistics, not just personal preference. If you cannot make a strong story, it will likely be hard to convince anyone. Before meeting with leadership, try to think of the questions they might ask and answer them beforehand during your presentation. Altogether, this will help you convey the direction you want to go.

Want to have your question answered next week? Ask your question via this form (anonymously)