Software engineer · product designer · digital transformation advisorhttps://omaralbeik.comenMon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/binding-libvlc-directly-from-swift-6https://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/binding-libvlc-directly-from-swift-6An IPTV client needed Picture-in-Picture, and the VLCKit line it ran on does not have it. Notes on owning a C engine rather than consuming one — pointer isolation, lifetimes nothing checks, a patch set carried against VLC's own source, and what that costs.Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTsoftwareengineeringhttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/protocol-oriented-extensionshttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/protocol-oriented-extensionsSwifterSwift passed five hundred extensions and began colliding with other libraries. A member added to a type you do not own is not scoped to your library at all — it is global, and no module qualifier reaches it.Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTsoftwareengineeringhttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/enforce-ssh-instead-of-http-for-git-operationshttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/enforce-ssh-instead-of-http-for-git-operationsGitHub stopped accepting passwords for Git in August 2021. A token in a credential helper solves the typing but not the expiry; a key solves both, and reaches the HTTPS URLs you did not write yourself.Mon, 23 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMTsoftwareengineeringhttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/let-the-standard-library-comparehttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/let-the-standard-library-compareFinding the first match, ordering by more than one key, and checking an index against a range. The hand-written version of each is longer, and two of the three are also slower.Mon, 16 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMTsoftwareengineeringhttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/use-property-observershttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/use-property-observerswillSet and didSet take a parameter, and both have a default name — so naming them explicitly is usually redundant. The rules about when they do not fire matter more.Fri, 06 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMTsoftwareengineeringhttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/generics-in-typealiashttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/generics-in-typealiasNaming a completion handler once and writing Handler<Post> at each call site. It gives you readability and a single place to change the signature. It does not give you type safety.Thu, 05 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMTsoftwareengineeringhttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/safe-collection-subscripthttps://omaralbeik.com/en/blog/safe-collection-subscriptThe extension turns an out-of-bounds crash into nil. That is useful when the index comes from outside your own code, and hides a logic error when it does not.Fri, 12 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMTsoftwareengineering