By default, Entity Framework takes the .Net decimal Type and maps it to SQL Server’s decimal(18,2) data type. If you’ve got a property on an Entity that is of Type decimal, but down in your database, you’re allowing for greater precision than 2 decimal places (scale is actually the proper term for t...

I just finished roasting some coffee from Peru. I’ve never had it before, but it got me thinking about my Roaster On the Go “app” as I thought about the context that I could use to show you the solution to the compiler error described in the title. I used this to demonstrate Working with Unwind Segu...

Using SQL Server’s Geospatial features with Entity Framework is awesome. I was crusing along just fine with using DbGeography for an ASP.Net application I’m working on… Right up until I deployed to the server. Yep. It worked on my machine, but alas, I was hitting a runtime exception on my test serve...

Full credit to Russell Ivanovic for his tweet for figuring out how to disable Xcode 8’s extremely chatty debug console logging. I just wanted this here for my own reference, but perhaps it’s helpful to you as well. If you’re tired of sifting through operating system-level logging to the debug consol...

Did you know that you can tinker with Core Data inside of Swift playgrounds in Xcode? You can! Jeremiah Jessel, author at http://www.learncoredata.com, wrote up an article in 2015 detailing how you can use the Core Data framework inside a playground. He shows how you can do everything from setting u...

I had TypeScript files building and running perfectly when I’d debug locally, but when I changed over to publish the project, I got build errors galore: Cannot find module ___ TS6053 – File ___ not found I had forgotten that I set up my TypeScript Build configuration for Debug, but I hadn’t changed ...

Do you find your Swift code riddled with !‘s? I’m becoming more and more uncomfortable with seeing ! throughout my Swift code. It’s just a matter of time before it’s going to bite me. Often, I do it because it’s the “easy thing” to do at the time. But it’s dangerous. Swift optionals are trying to he...

A question was asked on Reddit and showed up in my feed as I was browsing this weekend: What does protocol oriented programming mean, and why is it better than OOP? I really like a few things that were said in one of the top “Explain Like I’m 5” comments that was posted in response to the question b...

So you’ve prepared to test receipt validation by setting up your app in iTunes Connect. You’ve brought in a cryptography library like OpenSSL to be able to work with the PKCS #7 container that acts as the “envelope” for the receipt. Perhaps you’ve even done it the “easy way” with CocoaPods. You’ve l...

Folks have asked more about working with Event Kit and Swift, so the series continues with this guide on how to create calendar events with Event Kit and Swift! Previous guides in the series include the following: Previous Guides Beginner’s Guide to Event Kit in Swift – Requesting Permission Creatin...

Working with NSDate, NSDateFormatter, and NSDateComponents can be a little convoluted, so I’ve created myself a cheat sheet that will be updated as I discover new tips and tricks in this realm. The new cheat sheet can be found over at GitHub in the form of an Xcode Playground: Resources Swift Dates ...

It’s always the little things that lead to flatter foreheads (or at least it is for me). Banging my head against the desk this evening working on a Parse migration, I finally figured out what was causing an error condition in a PFCloud function call. The request to the server succeeded, but the resp...

Without fail, any time Rob Napier (@cocoaphony) speaks or writes, I gain insight into new and deeper ways to solve problems with Swift. In January 2016, he gave a talk at dotSwift, and I wanted to record my thoughts on something he said that made a lot of sense when it comes to the topic of, “Should...

This is the continuation of a series of articles I’ve writing for Swift developers working with Event Kit. Supposing that after asking the user for permission to use their calendars, and even allowing users to create new calendars from within your iOS app, one possible next step could be to list out...

Below are steps that I’ve taken, myself, to deploy the [Parse Dashboard][1] to a cloud host, such as Azure, or Heroku. Before you worry with a cloud host, you need a copy of the parse-dashboard to prepare for deployment… 1 – Clone parse-dashboard git repository First, you’ll want to clone (or fork, ...

Updated on March 20, 2017 – Xcode 8 & Swift 3 If you’re having trouble figuring out how to add buttons to the navigation bar in your Storyboard-based iOS app, my goal in this article is to help you through the process. Knowing what to click and where to drag to get things wired up isn’t entirely int...

The Parse migration process has begun – I’ve got a couple of small apps that used this backend as a service because the backend was simple and Parse was free. The migration has gone fairly smooth so far, but I hit a wall and have been struggling to figure out the solution for about 3 hours. 3 hours ...

For the well-versed functional programmer, the fact that [functions in Swift are Types][1] is no surprise. But I’m relatively new to the game on that front, so when I first encountered the idea of thinking of a function as a Type back when Swift was announced in 2014, it was a real eye-opener for me...

During the production of my Pluralsight course on Managing Xcode Project Dependencies with CocoaPods, I wanted to provide viewers of the course the opportunity to see how to create and deploy a simple library out to the CocoaPods Trunk. Inspiration A simple idea came to mind: Create something that a...

Updated on October 12, 2016 – Swift 3.0 Callbacks: What are they? How do they work? What are they used for in practice? My goal in this article is to provide answers to these questions so that you have a foundational understanding of this common programming pattern in iOS development. What are callb...

Course Outline I try to get as practical as possible in the course. As you’re watching you’ll be “embedded” into a team of iOS developers, and you’ll explore the problems that CocoaPods can solve for you by watching the team struggle through not having a dependency manager, and then sharing in their...

I spent waaaaay way way way too long fighting this one, so I’m saving everything I found on the issue so that I never lose it. Setup Running Internet Information Services (IIS) 8.5 on my laptop. Set up a site with an ASP.Net MVC web application Windows Authentication. Problem Browsing the site local...

It’s the simple things that get us, isn’t it? I was working on a simple little framework the other day, and I’d gotten things just how I wanted… or so I thought. I was ready to test things out and import the framework into my real app. import MyShinyNewFramework Sweet! No build errors! // attempt to...

Updated on September 20, 2016 – Xcode 8 & Swift 3.0 Navigating between screens is a critical component to building iOS applications. The mechanism for navigation in Storyboard-based applications is the segue. Using segues, we can travel ahead to the next screen, which is extremely common. We can als...

A couple of ways exist to install a DLL into the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). Using gacutil.exe is one, but this comes as part of a Visual Studio installation, and in a server environment, you may not have the luxury of installing Visual Studio, just to get the utility installed. An alternative, how...

Building social media features into our apps has never been easier! In this guide, I will walk you through how to get started with accessing the Social framework for iOS so that you can take advantage of Apple’s built-in support for two major social media platforms: Facebook, and Twitter. For your c...

It may come as a surprise to you, but a green-lit passing unit test is not always a sign that all is well with our software. Our apps and their corresponding unit test suites always start off clean and basic and simple. But they don’t stay that way for long. Cycles of code changes and additions and ...

While relying on 3rd party dependencies can provide you the benefit of not having to spend time implementing a portion of your app, realize that you’re essentially giving away little pieces of your app when you bring in a dependency. You’re delegating away a certain level of control off to someone e...

I’m working through a progression of entries on the process of validating receipts with OpenSSL for iOS in Swift. Just want the code? Here you go! Resources Swifty Local Receipt Validator To-date, I’ve explained how to get OpenSSL into your project (the easy way), and I’ve walked through how to prep...

After having to piece together each step along the path of preparing to test receipt validation for iOS apps, I’ve decided to combine everything into the following guide. Whether you’re working to implement receipt validation for a new iOS app, or for an existing one, this walk-through should provid...