Getting Started

A beginners guide to learning Swift and iOS development: Edition 2.2

Posted on by manitobaninja

Swift_logo.svg

Some of the first posts I did on this site were on what I thought were, at the time, the best online resources for learning Swift. Since then I have come across new material, and talked to other people who are just starting to learn Swift and iOS development. It has given me a lot more insight to what makes some resources better then others, beyond some of the obvious qualities. Because of these insights and with new material being released all the time I wanted to revisit this beginners guide to Swift and iOS development resources, and do a complete update to it.

This guide will not be broken down into several different posts. Instead, everything will be in one mega-post which will make it much easier to use as a reference. Part 1 will briefly talk about the different approaches you can take in order to learn Swift, from highly structured, to completely free form.. Part 2 will be broken down into multiple sections that will list the various books, courses, tutorials, and other reference materials, that are available, along with a brief summary of each and in some cases a link to a much more detailed review I have done. Part 3 will offer suggestions on which resources might be the best choices for you, and why, for those that are looking for some advice on where to start. So let’s jump in! Read More

Resources for learning Swift

Posted on by manitobaninja

One of the challenges someone wanting to learn Swift faces right out of the gate is knowing where to start in terms of learning resources. Because Swift is still a young, new, and evolving language it has not yet built up the knowledge base you would find with other languages and because it continues to evolve it is key that the information you are getting is up to date as well!

This is the launch page for the collection of Swift learning resources I have put together. It will not remain static. New resources will be added as they are released, and ones that are no longer relevant will be removed. I am not listing every resource I have ever come across either. The only things I am listing are material that I have used, or taken a really good look at, and found to be genuinely helpful. If you have something that you think is worth adding to any of the lists then let me know. You can leave a comment below or send me a message on Twitter @ManitobaNinja or @Third_beach Read More

getting Started (05): Some basic guidelines for coding

Posted on by manitobaninja

So here you are. At this point you are probably starting to do some of your own coding. Maybe it’s a Hello World app (everyone does a Hello World app in the beginning), a music player, or something you are trying out on your own. It is pretty exciting isn’t it! And you may well have already started to run into bugs with your program, scratched your head about unwrapping an optional, or forgotten a curly brace at the end of a function and wasted more time then you would like to admit trying to track down such a small problem. This is all great and soon we will start to look at the specifics of Swift and get into understanding the language itself.

Before we do though, there are some general rules and guidelines that I will discuss that are really worth thinking about and implementing to some degree, even in the early days of programming. These have come from my own experience, and learning, and the frustrations I dealt with as part of my own effort to make my work time more efficient!

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