Title: Programming in Xcode on Linux: The Current State and Future Directions

As a developer who loves working with Swift, you might be wondering if it's possible to program in Xcode on Linux. In recent days, I stumbled upon an exciting project called Swift Bundler that has made this a reality. Although there are some limitations, the future looks promising.

One of the main issues currently is the manifest parsing failing on Linux. However, this shouldn't be too difficult to fix, especially considering that the frontend is just an implementation detail. Instead, you can call into the driver, which should simplify things.

I'm actually planning a talk on cross-platform Swift at Swift TO next month where I'll dive deeper into these topics and share more insights. My goal is to create a tool for one-click building, packaging, signing, and deployment of iOS apps. If you're interested in using or contributing to this project, please let me know.

One of the most exciting aspects of working with Swift on Linux is that it's possible to build SwiftUI apps despite the feature still being experimental. For example, SourceKit LSP doesn't support SDKs yet, so you'll need some extra workarounds for now. However, once more of the Swift SDK spec is implemented, installation and usage should become much simpler.

In general, Swift SDK support is incomplete at this stage, so don't expect everything to work smoothly just yet. There are open PRs around these issues, and I'm hopeful that some of them will be resolved soon.

When it comes to iOS support, things get a bit more complicated. While macOS works relatively well already, iOS support is still buggier due to the need for unspeakable hacks. For instance, iOS xcframeworks don't work, which means you'll need to find alternative solutions.

If you're building an app that needs to be compatible with multiple platforms, one approach is to make your core logic platform-agnostic and run unit tests natively on Linux for now. I do plan to simplify this in the future, but that's another project for another day.

Unfortunately, there's currently no support for running iOS/macOS unit tests on Linux, since simulating/emulating a Darwin environment is a significant challenge. However, you can still sign and deploy your app using tools like `sdk/toolset/bin/ldid` and `ideviceinstaller`.

In conclusion, while there are some limitations to working with Swift in Xcode on Linux, the future looks promising. By keeping an eye on the developments of projects like Swift Bundler and the Swift SDK, we can expect to see more seamless integration between platforms.

Programming in xcode on linux