Empowering Development: The Journey and Vision of Tuist

It’s been about six years since organizations began to understand the lack of focus Apple has given to the challenges of large-scale development. Within this timeframe, it became evident how invaluable Tuist is in addressing these challenges. Numerous major projects and white-label apps have come to recognize the prowess of Tuist, valuing its ability to maintain simplicity even while scaling. Some have even transitioned from intricate build systems like Bazel, which, despite their strengths, impose an unsustainable level of complexity and support demands on many organizations.

Our journey in developing Tuist wasn’t an easy one. We juggled multiple roles, from coding to marketing, writing to community support. Each hat we wore was worn out of faith in Tuist and its potential impact on the development community. And let’s be clear: this is only the beginning.

The journey took six years, primarily because it was a side project for us. But imagine the strides we could make if we dedicated our full attention to it! Tuist is more than just a tool; it’s a foundation that equips developers with essential tools for sustainable growth. I’m often perplexed as to why Apple hasn’t addressed certain metrics:

• How frequently do developers need to perform a clean build after encountering a compilation error?
• How long do targets take to build or tests take to run?
• How frequently do tests fail, and can they be automatically disabled when they do?

Apple seems preoccupied, perhaps grappling with legacy decisions in Xcode, while continually rolling out new language features and APIs. While these features are exciting for small projects, they’re less so when projects scale up, revealing Xcode’s limitations. At this juncture, organizations often either waste time battling these issues or divert to alternative solutions like React Native. The good news? Other ecosystems have already tackled these challenges, and there’s much we can learn.

For us, this represents an opportunity. An opportunity to offer a seamlessly integrated solution. When observing the tools aiming to integrate into developers’ workflows, it’s evident that many setups are convoluted. The ideal experience for developers is simplicity. They should execute a command and have everything work seamlessly. Sadly, Apple doesn’t provide the necessary APIs for a smooth integration into Xcode. Many tools lean on Fastlane, bringing along the complexities of Ruby, Bundler, and more. With Tuist, all you need is Tuist and a project defined through it.

The future for Tuist Cloud looks promising. We’ve laid a solid foundation and cultivated a community that genuinely believes in our mission. As we move forward, we’ll introduce exciting features. From boosting developer productivity to providing actionable insights and even automating tasks for developers, the possibilities are boundless.

In summary, while Tuist Cloud is still evolving, the hardest part is behind us. We have a firm foundation and a dedicated community. Now, it’s our turn to supercharge Tuist and empower development teams to foster thriving environments.