Seeking Advice on whether to buy the iOS Programming book

Welcome to the new Big Nerd Ranch Books forum
#1

I am an experienced programmer with decades of experience but not in the iOS arena.

Very knowledgeable about Swift at this point but still coming up to speed in Xcode and iOS
SDK’s at this point.

My end goal is to become proficient in the SwiftUI arena but I have a sneaking suspicion that
UIKit proficiency will be necessary in the long run.

My understanding is that you can also mix the two environments and will require a good background in UIKit.

I’m looking for learning path recommendations and was initially pondering the following sequence:

  1. Learn iOS UIKit programming first ( which would entail purchasing BNR iOS programming book first
    and working through it.
  2. Then learn SwiftUI.
  3. Focus on the interactions between SwiftUI and UIKit.

I would appreciate any recommendations and comments on the aforementioned path.

Thanks in advance!

#2

You will definitely benefit from reading BNR books (both Cocoa and iOS), especially if you find it hard to understand Apple’s programming resources. Once you have read the BNR books, you are ready to fly solo.

#3

We are indeed in an awkward spot right now with so many changes.

I think you have a good plan, though. I think most iOS developers will benefit from having UIKit experience, and that most of us should strive to be able to work with both if we are able.

Which to learn first? I think there are good arguments for going in either order; it’s a bit like deciding whether to learn to drive an automatic transmission vehicle before or after learning to drive a standard/manual transmission vehicle… one is old, established, and you can dig deep into its guts if you’re interested. The other is easier to use and to learn, but you can’t do quite as many cool tricks with it (yet).

tl;dr: Your plan is a sound one. But I’m biased of course. :slight_smile:

#4

Just wanted to reply to you also, ibex10, to thank you for your continued activity and enthusiasm around here. You’ve been on these forums a long, long time and it’s been noticed and appreciated.

#5

Thanks for the advice!

#6

While I have decided to get the BNR iOS book, I noticed the OS X latest edition came out in 2015, and is very outdated at this point. With all of the changes pertaining to Catalina and Big Sur, I was hoping BNR would eventually come out with a new edition. From what I have read, I guess they are pretty consumed with their training classes at this point.

#7

Add to that the fact that they apparently no longer offer training on Mac OS X programming. I would be surprised if they published a replacement for the 2015 book.

#8

BTW, Just realized that you were the author of the Swift Programming Book 3.0. I love your treatment on Opaque Types. I understood the concept a wee bit, but your analogy with food being served in a restaurant is excellent and drives home the point of using Opaque Types.

I also like the way you present the changes to code in ongoing discussions via the deletion lines as it makes it much easier trying to comprehend subject matter when using ePub formats because I don’t have to move back a forth a couple of pages while trying to figure out what changed.