An Open Letter to /SwiftUI

Hi friends! 👋

Apologies for the delayed introduction. Without any advertising on my part, it’s great to see there’s already 38 of us here breaking ground on our SwiftUI community here on Digg!

I wanted to give an update because I know it’s been quiet around these parts since the initial post. Yesterday evening I finished writing v0.1 of our community description and guidelines. Today, I want to introduce myself.

I’m your host, and I hope we can have a lot of fun together sharing, coding, posting, and discussing all things SwiftUI :D

When public beta launch day arrived, I was very early. Like, early enough that and were still up for grabs. I had a lot of time to choose carefully. I thought about being the founder of those communities here on Digg, but ultimately I chose instead and I want to let you know why.

First, you should know I care very little about the “land grab” aspect of any of this. You may be aware that since we’re now in the public beta of this site, some community names were taken quickly. Some people are disappointed about what they could or couldn’t get, or what they had taken away, and in most cases I understand the frustration. Yes, it’s awesome that I got . But let me be clear: I don’t consider myself the “rightful owner” of this space. Instead, I see it as a privilege that comes with accepting a level of responsibility in exchange for some influence over steering direction.

Another user on this site had pointed out that we don’t “own” communities; we found them. I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. Honestly, this is my first time moderating an online community so publicly (but not my first time moderating) and frankly, it sounds like it will be a lot of work even if it does well. At the same time, I’m also really excited about it because I want it to go well.

Second, I’m still fairly new to SwiftUI. And that’s precisely why I chose to start this community. “Wait wha”, you ask? Yeah, you heard it from me first! It’s precisely because I know I have so much left to learn, I could not be more excited.

So you should know my incentives are aligned with the best interest of this space, and if it ever is not the case I would gladly pass on the torch.

I have a lot of ideas I want to try out. Some of them will work and some of them may not. That’s fine (though I aim for more successes than not)!

Building in public, learning in public, growing in public, MESSING UP in public… and trying almost anything in public with your name, identity, and reputation attached to it is certainly daunting. Still, I don’t think that should stop anyone from creating the things worth creating or sharing the things worth sharing. For me right now, that’s diving deeper and deeper into iOS development every day—especially with SwiftUI—and trying my best to document it.

For the reasons above, this is what it means to me to be a good steward of this space.

I’d like to believe how we show up online or in person means something. The global community guidelines say to show up as we are. Why not give that a chance by living it? I hope this can help us all grow into who we want to become as developers.

I am definitely inspired by other online communities centered around Swift, SwiftUI, and all things development in the Apple ecosystem. But I also want to do things a little differently.

What I mean is I think there are a lot of opportunities to be thoughtful in how we engage with one another. As we (hopefully) grow, I’d love to try out different ways of studying together, sharing ideas or goals, and telling our stories about all the cool SwiftUI things!

So yeah, we’re still in the very early days. I certainly didn’t mean to write this much. But let’s make it fun and welcoming for all regardless of where you are at in your developer jourey. Let’s create a space where everyone knows this is THE best place on Digg to engage with SwiftUI.

Finally, if you’ve read this far then I know you joined this space for a reason (even if you weren’t actively thinking about it)!

Soo… please drop a comment and tell us why did you join and what do you want this space to be for you?

I want to hear it, and so does everyone else here.

Let’s do this!

P.S. If you enjoy animal content, I’m also the founder of and it would also mean a lot if you went to check that out too! :)