CocoaPods

I just upgraded one of my projects to useCocoaPods. CocoaPods is a library dependency manager for XCode projects. You can use it in a way similar to Ruby’s gems or Haskell’s cabal. The project is just starting, so it’s a little rough, but it does the job.

I think this can make code sharing for iOS developers a lot easier. I’m all for reusing code, but it used to be quite a hassle to include a library, so a lot of times I would try to avoid reusing other code. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only developer who’s like this. CocoaPods makes the barrier to reuse a lot lower.

By making code sharing a lot easier and encouraging it, I hope that CocoaPods can change the landscape on iOS. While there are already a lot of open source components available (for example, on the excellentCocoaControls), this will hopefully spawn a new load of open source libraries.

Cocoa developers, install CocoaPods and give it a try. And while you’re at it, try to put your favorite library in a Pod file. Together, we can improve the ecosystem.