This book will teach you the essential concepts of iOS programming. At the same time, you’ll type in a lot of code and build a bunch of applications. By the end of the book, you’ll have knowledge and experience. However, all the knowledge shouldn’t (and, in this book, won’t) come first. That’s sort of the traditional way we’ve all come to know and hate. Instead, we take a learn-while-doing approach. Development concepts and actual coding go together.
Here’s what we’ve learned over the years of teaching iOS programming:
- We’ve learned what ideas people must have to get started programming, and we focus on that subset.
- We’ve learned that people learn best when these concepts are introduced as they are needed.
- We’ve learned that programming knowledge and experience grow best when they grow together.
- We’ve learned that “going through the motions” is much more important than it sounds. Many times we’ll ask you to start typing in code before you understand it. We get that you may feel like a trained monkey typing in a bunch of code that you don’t fully grasp. But the best way to learn coding is to find and fix your typos. Far from being a drag, this basic debugging is where you really learn the ins and outs of the code. That’s why we encourage you to type in the code yourself. You could just download it, but copying and pasting is not programming. We want better for you and your skills.
What does this mean for you, the reader? To learn this way takes some trust. And we appreciate yours. It also takes patience. As we lead you through these chapters, we will try to keep you comfortable and tell you what’s happening. However, there will be times when you’ll have to take our word for it. (If you think this will bug you, keep reading – we’ve got some ideas that might help.) Don’t get discouraged if you run across a concept that you don’t understand right away. Remember that we’re intentionally not providing all the knowledge you will ever need all at once. If a concept seems unclear, we will likely discuss it in more detail later when it becomes necessary. And some things that aren’t clear at the beginning will suddenly make sense when you implement them the first (or the twelfth) time.
People learn differently. It’s possible that you will love how we hand out concepts on an as-needed basis. It’s also possible that you’ll find it frustrating. In case of the latter, here are some options:
- Take a deep breath and wait it out. We’ll get there, and so will you.
- Check the index. We’ll let it slide if you look ahead and read through a more advanced discussion that occurs later in the book.
- Check the online Apple documentation. This is an essential developer tool, and you’ll want plenty of practice using it. Consult it early and often.
- If it’s Objective-C or object-oriented programming concepts that are giving you a hard time (or if you think they will), you might consider backing up and reading our Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide.