I observed Mike Gerasimenko’s new XcodeSelectiveTesting library this week, and it set me serious about how we run checks in Xcode in comparison with my earlier expertise with different growth environments.
Mike’s library makes use of Take a look at Plans to cut back the variety of checks that have to be executed based mostly on calculating what checks have been affected by the recordsdata you’ve modified. After all, you’ll nonetheless need to run your full take a look at suite recurrently, however when checks break, there are actual advantages to getting fast suggestions, and operating fewer checks is an effective way to make your checks run quicker!
My important expertise growing with different languages comes from writing Ruby code, the place I discovered guard invaluable. It’s a instrument that runs alongside your editor and runs any affected checks everytime you save any file in your undertaking. It modified how I used checks, as the results of any modifications have been immediately obvious, and I nonetheless use it each time I want to vary a Ruby undertaking.
Examine that to how I work at this time, the place our take a look at suite on you realize what takes over two minutes to run. Because of this, I run the checks far much less usually and typically solely work out I’ve damaged one thing when CI tells me. 😬
I do know it’s early for characteristic requests for Xcode 16, and I do know that with Swift being a compiled language, it gained’t be straightforward to achieve the identical degree of comfort as seeing take a look at outcomes a second or two after saving a file. Nevertheless, I’d like to see Apple transfer in the direction of a mannequin that makes what Mike is doing with XcodeSelectiveTesting pointless and in the direction of having Xcode give builders fixed suggestions from take a look at suites.
Dave Verwer 
