This book is based on the class we teach at Big Nerd Ranch. This book forms the foundation of the class you are taking from Big Nerd Ranch. As such, it was designed to be consumed in a certain manner.

Set yourself a reasonable goal, like, “I will do one chapter every day.” When you sit down to attack a chapter, find a quiet place where you will not be interrupted for at least an hour. Shut down your email, your Twitter client, and your chat program. This is not a time for multitasking; you will need to concentrate.

Do the actual programming. You can read through a chapter first, if you like. But the real learning comes when you sit down and code as you go. You will not really understand the idea until you have written a program that uses it and, perhaps more importantly, debugged that program.

A couple of the exercises require supporting files. For example, in the first chapter you will need an icon for your Quiz application, and we have one for you. You can download the resources and solutions to the exercises from www.bignerdranch.com/​solutions/​iOSProgramming7ed.zip. Your instructor will provide you with the resources and solutions to the exercises.

There are two types of learning. When you learn about the Peloponnesian War, you are simply adding details to a scaffolding of ideas that you already understand. This is what we will call “Easy Learning.” Yes, learning about the Peloponnesian War can take a long time, but you are seldom flummoxed by it. Learning iOS programming, on the other hand, is “Hard Learning,” and you may find yourself quite baffled at times, especially in the first few days. In writing this book, we have tried to create an experience that will ease you over the bumps in the learning curve. Here are two things you can do to make the journey easier: