why is it so difficult to customise swiftui list

Customizing a SwiftUI list can be challenging due to several factors:

1. Composition and Flexibility: SwiftUI lists are designed to be highly compositional, allowing you to create lists from collections of data or manually written views. However, this flexibility can sometimes limit creativity when the default container behavior doesn't align with your specific needs. For example, a list initialized with a collection of data might restrict how you want to compose different kinds of content together (Demystify SwiftUI containers).

2. View Modifiers and Customization: While SwiftUI provides a range of view modifiers to customize lists (e.g., adding swipe actions), achieving more advanced customizations often requires a deep understanding of how to compose additional containers and modifiers. This incremental approach can be powerful but also complex (SwiftUI essentials).

3. Declarative Nature: SwiftUI's declarative approach means you describe what you want the UI to do, and SwiftUI handles the details. This can simplify many tasks but also means you need to work within the constraints of the framework's abstractions. Customizing beyond what is provided out-of-the-box can require diving into lower-level APIs or creating custom views and modifiers (Platforms State of the Union).

4. State Management: SwiftUI views are state-driven, automatically updating the UI when the state changes. While this reduces boilerplate code and update bugs, it also means you need to manage state effectively to ensure your customizations work as expected (SwiftUI essentials).

5. Platform-Specific APIs: SwiftUI has a common set of components across platforms but also includes specialized APIs for each platform. Customizing a list might involve using these platform-specific APIs, which adds another layer of complexity (SwiftUI essentials).

For a deeper dive into these topics, you can refer to the sessions "Demystify SwiftUI containers" and "SwiftUI essentials" from WWDC 2024.