I don’t mind doing programmatic tweaking, but on my machine, at least, I don’t get very reliable previewing. I have to run the app to get an idea of how my tweaks are working (to be fair, IBE is similar, but the preview is somewhat more reliable).
I really want this to work. I’m glad to see KVO getting some love on iOS.
I had two instances where the preview turned out to be a hassle (crashing, or hard to get it to work).
First was a test project with Core Data. It was a hassle to set up the preview. So much so, that I often skipped it.
Second instance was crashing; I'd created a View but the layout was based on something in UserDefaults, and I forgot about that. So when I created another view that incorporated that first view, I got crashes. So bad, in fact, that a restart of Xcode didn't help. I had to close Xcode, then on the commandline, find and kill the daemon responsible for previews.
Were you able to point to causes of the unreliable previewing in your case?
I will say that I have been developing Apple software for 34 years, so I tend to be a little on the.."hard-boiled cynic" side.
I have taken OpenDoc and QuickDraw GX classes, because they were "The Next Big Thing."
I also busted my butt, making sure that my apps were "Copeland-ready" (Darn it, now I have to do fifty push-ups).
I've learned that it's a good idea to stand back a little, and let the eager beavers soak up the bullets.
I love Apple (see "34 years," above), but they are absolute Charisma 18 hype machine masters.
It took me a couple of years to figure out how to use it properly.
Like I said, we're on the right track, and I doubt that Apple will let this fall by the wayside. I think they were planning this at about the same time that they started dreaming up Swift.