Rate this book

IPhone Programming (Big Nerd Ranch Guides) (2010)

by Joe Conway(Favorite Author)

4.25 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0321706242 (ISBN13: 9780321706249)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Addison-Wesley Professional

review 1: This is widely considered one of the go-to books on learning iOS development. For the most part, the authors do a great job of explaining the concepts presented in each chapter...in the beginning of the book. Towards the end, it seems like topics were rushed. In their defense, they did state in the last chapter (the best one IMO) that they didn't go very deep into topics and that we should go deeper when we started our own projects.One thing people need to know (which I thought was very confidence-building for me) was that in that last chapter they said the good news is that you have the basics to be an iOS developer. The bad news is that you're probably not a very good iOS developer. Bingo! With all the information they presented and all that is out there in Apple's docum... moreentation, it's impossible to become fluent in it by following the book. It does provide a good starting point, but it was nice to read that I shouldn't expect to be a hot-shot developer right away, even though I've been writing software for 30+ years.One other great confidence-builder is that they end most chapters with some challenges (Bronze, Silver, Gold). The Bronze were intended to use things we learned in that chapter and may take 10-30 minutes to do. Silver added content we had learned in earlier chapters. Those may take a bit longer. The Gold you could expect to spend the better part of the day doing. Those challenges (Bronze and a few Silver) gave me the confidence to know that I really did understand some or all of the chapter, even if it felt like I was zipping through with no clue what I was doing.This will now be a great reference book when I get stuck on topics and concepts while working on my own projects. Plus, I'll be taking BNR's bootcamp in a couple of months which pretty-much goes through the book, but in one week. I'm now armed with questions and curiosities to hash out with the book's author.
review 2: This is a decent introduction to iOS programming. It is intended to be a "hands on" book, leading the reader through examples and concepts. It tries to introduce concepts as needed and not burden the reader with more than is needed at any point in time.It's a decent intro though probably not worthwhile for intermediate to advanced programmers. Experienced programmers looking for knowledge on Objective C or iOS might find it useful (as I did) but there may be too much of the book that you end up skimming to get to the parts you care about. less

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