Webdevotion.be » books http://www.webdevotion.be/blog Trainer for the Flash Platform and iOS Tue, 01 Nov 2011 10:14:44 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Resources to pick up iOS development http://www.webdevotion.be/blog/2011/11/01/resources-to-pick-up-ios-development/ http://www.webdevotion.be/blog/2011/11/01/resources-to-pick-up-ios-development/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:59:40 +0000 Webdevotion http://www.webdevotion.be/blog/?p=435 Continue reading →]]> A lot of people are trying to learn iOS development.
The learning curve is quite steep if you don’t have a Objective-C or C background. Mix that in with a learning a new IDE ( XCode ) and you have a recipe for failure.

A couple of iOS books

I want to give you a headstart with these books, all available on Safari ( O’Reilly’s online reading platform ).

Programming in Objective-C ( 3rd Edition )

Programming in Objective-C Cover ( Third Edition )

This book does not assume much, if any, previous programming experience.

You can’t write native iOS apps without using Objective C. This book is an ideal primer and well structured. After you’ve read this book, you’re good to dive into iOS ( and even development for the Mac ).

Programming in Objective-C ( Third Edition )

Beginning iPhone 4 Development

Beginning iPhone Development ( cover )

A nice book to get started with the basics: Beginning iPhone Development

It covers very simple apps, explains everything very well and also covers more complex topics.

But, it’s getting a bit outdated. Apress should release a revision of the book to cover XCode 4.3 and iOS 5. It was written for XCode 4 and a lot has changed in XCode 4.3.

I still recommend it to get started. From time to time you might scratch your head because some screens look different, but it just adds to the learning process.

iOS 5 Cookbook

The iOS 5 Developer's Cookbook ( cover ) by Erica Sadun

In two weeks ( mid november ) this book will come out: The iOS 5 Developer’s Cookbook. Sample code can allready be found here: https://github.com/erica/iOS-5-Cookbook

You can buy the digital version as a “Rough Cuts” edition today. The big downside to this book is that the author puts all of the code in one file ( main.m ) – so it can be hard to learn how to code properly if you’re just starting out. Erica’s ( author of the book ) description of the repo on Github explains why things are set up like that:

For the sake of pedagogy, this book’s sample code usually presents itself in a single main.m file. This is not how people normally develop iPhone or Cocoa applications, or should be developing them, but it provides a great way of presenting a single big idea.

If you can find yourself in that reasoning, you’re ready to pick up quite a few tips ‘n tricks.

Enterprise iOS Development

Enterprise iOS Applications ( cover )

This looks like a cool book. Including more advanced topics like automated builds etc. Very interesting once you get stuff like that up and running. Haven’t read it myself yet, but it’s on my “must read” list.

Enterprise iOS Development

]]> http://www.webdevotion.be/blog/2011/11/01/resources-to-pick-up-ios-development/feed/ 0 The books that did it for me in 2008 http://www.webdevotion.be/blog/2008/09/12/the-books-that-did-it-for-me-in-2008/ http://www.webdevotion.be/blog/2008/09/12/the-books-that-did-it-for-me-in-2008/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:25:38 +0000 Webdevotion http://webdevotion.be/blog/?p=61 Continue reading →]]> I like to read non-fiction books. Not only about programming, you get to read a lot of that on the internet, but also about other sides of life in general.

My Favourite Books in 2008


Please note that allthough this top 3 contains 2 books about programming, I value these books because they offer a broad scope on the topics they discuss. The knowledge they try to spread is applicable to other fields.

  • Quantum theory cannot hurt you by Marcus Chown
  • Collective intelligence by Toby Segaran
  • Deploying Rails Applications by Ezra Zygmuntowicz, Bruce Tate & Clinton Begin

The “Quantum theory” book is by far the most fascinating stuff I’ve ever read. It made me listen to spoken books by Stephen Hawking. Great to listen to in bed and fall asleep while dreaming of white dwarfs and black holes. Must-buy-that-one!

Other books I like to advice to people are The Purple Cow by Seth Godin, Pragmatic Version Control by Mike Mason and The Four Hour Work Week by Tim(othy) Ferriss.

Footnote:
Funny thing is, allthough I kind of hate marketing, it’s part of what I do, it’s what I read about sometimes. Maybe it’s to be more conscious about the tactics used by “those people”. And I do make money with it … You could argue that people should decide for themselves.

They got us believing that marketing does not affect us

But that’s the weird thing about all this: people acknowledge that they are being bullied constantly by commercials. And at the same time they believe it does not affect them. That’s the greatest achievement of the marketeers I think. They got us believing that marketing does not affect us.

( Note to self: you are writing this post while typing on a Mac, drinking Coca Cola and sitting in a designer chair. )

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