tl;dr

Pod::Spec.new do |s|
  s.name = 'MyPod'
  ...
  non_arc_files = 'Classes/FirstNonARCClass.m',
    'Classes/SecondNonARCClass.m',
    'Classes/ThirdNonARCClass.m'
  s.requires_arc = true
  s.source_files = 'Classes/*.{h,m}'
  s.exclude_files = non_arc_files
  s.subspec 'no-arc' do |sna|
    sna.requires_arc = false
    sna.source_files = non_arc_files
  end
end

ARC

Automatic reference counting (ARC) is a good thing. It's a great compile-time technology that makes it easier, in most cases, to not accidentally introduce trivial memory leaks in modern Objective-C apps.

But sometimes, you have older code with traditional memory management; it's not really worth converting to ARC if it's correct, and possibly finely tuned. And sometimes ARC introduces a little unnecessary overhead that can balloon out of control when handling large numbers of objects. There are also good reasons to put Objective-C objects into structs or other odd places that ARC prohibits or makes difficult (Objective-C++ anyone?).

That said, ARC is almost always a good idea. And so disabling ARC should be the exception, not the rule.

CocoaPods

CocoaPods is an excellent dependency management system for Objective-C projects. Dependencies are distributed as 'Pods' which are described in podpecs. A podspec is a kind of build description, that specifies where the source ...

Read more | Comments | May 04, 2013

CocoaPods

CocoaPods is an excellent dependency management system for Objective-C projects. Dependencies are distributed as 'Pods’ which are almost exactly like gems. A podspec is a kind of build description, that specifies where the source is to be found, dependencies it has, and how it should be configured and compiled. The best part is that they’re extremely legible.

This is a great improvement over the typical git submodule, or linked Xcode project for each dependency. To use CocoaPods, you specify your application’s dependencies in a Podfile. This is typically a concise list of the pods required to build the application. CocoaPods generates a Pods project with a single target consisting of a single static library custom-built for your app to contain all the dependencies in one place. The Pods project that gets put into a workspace along with your project, so that everything plays nice with Xcode as both and IDE and as a build system. The Pods project doesn’t get checked in to your repository because it can be completely regenerated from your Podfile.

Read more | Comments | February 20, 2013

I just published a new app, Swirltastic, in the iOS app store. Swirltastic is both a toy and an art project. It’s a big mess of colorful swirls that respond to your touches.

My hope is to continue releasing updates that introduce new and interesting ways of interacting with the swirls.

Read more | Comments | August 27, 2012