Prototyping with local packages

My notes on prototyping with local swift packages

Why prototype with local packages?

• Easy to iterate early versions of a package
• Faster compile times than remote packages
• Share packages across many xCode projects (iOS / macOS)
• With local packages XCode will be more stable if you have a lot of nested frameworks that change a lot etc

How to setup a local package structure for prototyping

• Make a folder called /Packages/
• In the root folder add your mac and iOS projects
• Make swift package manager projects with terminal: swift package init in the /Packages folder
• Drag the packages you need from the /packages/ folder into xCode and make sure they compile etc
• Drag the packages into xCode projects and also add them in general tab by clicking + in the frameworks section (sometimes this doesnt work in workspace, so open the xcode proj by it self)
• Create a xCode workspace and drag the xCode projects into the workspace
• You can add remote packages in the local packages if you need to add remote packages etc
• You can also create a Common packages which serves as sort of umbrella package for efficient reuse etc

Final note:

• Now you can structure your prototype projects with proper framework structures
• Making code more modular and single purpose and easier to reason about

Gotchas:

• Embedding packages as submodules is a great way to speed up xcode build times