APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Category Archives: iPad
An example of unit testing working for me
Some specific feedback I was given regarding my unit testing talk at VTM: iPhone fall conference was that the talk was short on real-world application of unit testing. That statement is definitely true, and it’s unfortunate that I didn’t meet … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Mac, software-engineering, TDD, tool-support, VTM
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On voices that matter
In October I’ll be in Philadelphia, PA talking at Voices That Matter: Fall iPhone Developers’ Conference. I’m looking forward to meeting some old friends and new faces, and sucking up a little more of that energy and enthusiasm that pervades … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Talk, threatmodel, tool-support
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On private methods
Let’s invent a hypothetical situation. You’re the software architect for an Objective-C application framework at a large company. This framework is used by many thousands of developers to create all sorts of applications for a particular platform. However, you have … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Mac, PCAS, software-engineering
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On detecting God Classes
Opinion on Twitter was divided when I suggested the following static analyser behaviour: report on any class that conforms to too many protocols. Firstly, a warning: “too many” is highly contextual. Almost all objects implement NSObject and you couldn’t do … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Mac, software-engineering, tool-support
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On Fitt’s Law and Security
…eh? Don’t worry, read on and all shall be explained. I’ve said in multiple talks and podcasts before that one key to good security is good user interface design. If users are comfortable performing their tasks, and your application is … Continue reading
Posted in iPad, iPhone, Mac, threatmodel, UI, user-error
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On NSNull as an anti-pattern
All this talk about type-safe collections may leave you thinking: but what about NSNull? Let’s say you have an array that only accepts objects conforming to MyProtocol. You can’t add +[NSNull null] to it, because it doesn’t implement the protocol. … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Mac
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On type safety and making it harder to write buggy code
Objective-C’s duck typing system is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, in that it’s amazingly flexible. A curse, in that such flexibility can lead to some awkward problems. Something that typically happens in dealing with data from a … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Mac
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Careful how you define your properties
Spot the vulnerability in this Objective-C class interface: @interface SomeParser : NSObject { @private NSString *content; } @property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *content; – (void)beginParsing; //… @end Any idea? Let’s have a look at a use of this class in action: … Continue reading
Posted in iPad, iPhone, Mac, Vulnerability
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The difference between NSTableView and UITableView
A number of times, I’ve chased myself down rat holes in iPhone projects because I’ve created a design or implementation that assumes UITableView and NSTableView are similar objects. They aren’t. The main problem I come across is related to how … Continue reading
Posted in cocoa, iPad, iPhone, objc
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Losing your identity
Developers make use of cryptographic signatures in multiple places in the software lifecycle. No iPad or iPhone application may be distributed without having been signed by the developer. Mac developers who sign their applications get to annoy their customers much … Continue reading
