> I'm not sure if the author is aware that GeometryReader hasn't been necessary since iOS 18 added onGeometryChange modifiers.

I think the author does not understand how and why to use GeometryReader at all. He literally said "you find yourself wrapping everything in a GeometryReader" which is a different thing from simply measuring. For measuring you could always put GeometryReader into `.background()` and use that to avoid messing with the view layout. Also, "wrapping everything" is a good sign you are doing something wrong.

Edit: by the way compiler timeouts are not a SwiftUI issue: it is a Swift issue. You can create a timeout situation in pure Swift. For SwiftUI specifically this situation is addressed in the upcoming OS27 SDK.