Do we still need to hide/remove print statements in Xcode 8.2 and Swift 3 when releasing app?

Question

Is it still recommended / needed to hide print statements when releasing an app with Xcode 8.2 and Swift 3?

At the moment I have a global print function like this

 func print(_ items: Any...) {
    #if DEBUG
        Swift.print(items[0])
    #endif
}

than will only print if the project is in Debug mode.

Apple recently finally added the DEBUG flag by default in Xcode so we do not have to manually add it anymore in OtherFlags in Build Settings.

This made me wonder if we actually still need to remove the print statements or does Swift/Xcode do it automatically or is there some other optimisation where it is no longer needed.

If not is the above way the best approach?

Answer 1

After doing some more research it still seems that we need/should hide print statements for release. As mentioned in my question its best done via a global print function

func print(_ items: Any...) {
    #if DEBUG
        Swift.print(items[0])
    #endif
}