ObjectiveSee | Ben Sandofsky

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m tech lead of Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for iPad, and Twitter for Mac. Before that, I was lead on mobile.twitter.com. Before Twitter, I worked in a large spectrum of places, from tiny startups to big corporations.

I also write. You can follow @sandofsky, and I occasionally post essays to sandofsky.com

What is your computer and workspace setup while developing?

I prefer my 13” Macbook Air on a 27” Cinema Display, with a wireless keyboard and magic trackpad.

In my /etc/hosts file, I set distractions like Hacker News to 255.255.255.255.

What are your favourite Apple iOS API's to use within apps you develop?

Core Animation is a remarkable abstraction. I’m amazed by how many people get by without fully understanding it, but that’s a testament to how often it “just works.”

I’m happy about the relatively recent changes to Cocoa that let me cut down boilerplate. Blocks let me delete a ton of one-off subclasses and protocols/delegates. Literals for NSArray, NSDictionary, and NSNumber make simple code look simple.

I’m very excited for ARC. I’m impressed by how it addresses the productivity and safety issues around reference counting without sacrificing performance or introducing leaky abstractions.

What is some software that you use outside of Xcode for development?

I use Git for version control. It’s overkill for your project, and you’d be perfectly happy with Subversion or Mercurial. However, since I paid the price of learning it, I might as well take advantage of its power.

I drive Git from the command line, except when I need to visualize history, in which case I use GitX.

For editing, I use Textmate or vim.

I use Quicksilver as my launcher.

What do you do to stay up to date on new iOS features, frameworks and SDK's?

The platform is conservative, so if you only follow WWDC and the SDK release notes I don’t think you’ll fall behind. This feels like a welcome contrast coming from the web, where I spent too much time chasing fads rather than creating awesome things.

From a developers perspective, what are your hopes for the next major iOS update?

Device provisioning is a pain. I hold out hope for Gate Keeper style app distribution.

Finally, what is your favourite app?

I have to disqualify anything I work on.

I also can’t pick “Mail” or “Phone,” or I’ll look boring. It’s a tragedy how often great design is about how little you notice.

I’ll go with “Windosill” on iPad. It’s a focused experience, with an immersive atmosphere and great attention to details. I don’t think it would be the same without touch.