We're hopeful that it's the final week of preparation for the cleaner app's release. The main tasks now are the texts, screenshot designs, and, of course, the app's name. You didn’t really think we’d actually call it "Cleaner," did you? ;)
Instead of adding another feature right before the release (though the temptation was strong), I decided to walk through the path of a new user from the first launch of the app to the first successful cleanup. I went the extra mile and created a separate build, cleared its settings, and deleted the database. I immediately noticed that the module available at startup in the free version was taking too long to load data.
This leads to a couple of insights:
Always double-check everything; something is likely to break on the second try.
Don't be lazy and implement a debug menu in the app, a UI that only appears in debug builds and allows you to change the app's states. For example, quickly revoke gallery access rights, delete all settings from UserDefaults, or forcibly start some critical service, like synchronization with the backend. Regular use during development guarantees a host of surprises.
StackOverflow and you
One of the podcasts I listened to sparked the following thoughts. I doubt any of us avoid visiting Stack Overflow for answers to questions. The quality of content there is undeniably high, often better than the documentation on the same topics. In a recent podcast, there was a discussion where one participant argued that searching for ready-made answers generally leads to skill degradation and qualification reduction. He suggested an academic approach as an alternative—studying the documentation/literature on the topic in question, which would result in answers based on acquired knowledge.
Initially, I agreed with his points, but after some thought, I realized that both quick answers from Stack Overflow that provide ready recipes without deeper understanding and the academic approach should be used in parallel. If the topic is your specialty and you strive to grow and be a professional in it, you should lean towards the academic approach and avoid ready-made answers. However, if the question is outside an area where you plan to deepen your knowledge or have no interest, ready-made solutions are perfectly acceptable. After all, we don’t study the structure of a car engine just to understand where to pour in the gasoline.
What do you think about using ready-made answers from Stack Overflow? Do you read the documentation before googling?
That's all for now. Hopefully, the next post will start with the announcement that we've released Cleaner or whatever it will be called by then.