Best Course to learn XCode

I am interested in learning how to program for iPhone. I know Javascript and some OOP. Is there a best online course?

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There are dozens. Most of them assume a working knowledge of Swift. You can get the latest Swift language guide in the Books app. Be prepared for a steep learning curve. Then, also in the Books app, get App Development With Swift. This is the most approachable free resource I’ve found. Meanwhile, keep your eye out for sales on sites like Udemy. Your local public library may have a connection to lynda.com through which you can access more courses.

I’am currently on the iOS13 and Swift 5 course on Udemy from London App Brewery.

Stanford’s CS193P Developing Apps for iOS is on YouTube this year.

I haven’t watched this run, but some previous years on iTunes U were useful.

@kevinrichardson, we are in the same boat. Javascript, OOP and PHP and Python – very comfortable in. Have tried multiple times over the years to start learning XCode + Swift and I haven’t gotten very far. I have a couple suggestions of courses that I’ve bookmarked over the years as looking like they would be really good. I will try to find these over the weekend and add them to this thread, but I wanted to chime in prematurely so I can start following the conversation here.

I’ve usually sent people through the Ray Wenderlich tutorials/courses. They used to charge $60 or so for the set and now I think they may want you to subscribe, with the first couple free so you can see if you like their teaching style. I’ve found these courses to have better results than Lynda’s (although I haven’t re-evaluated those in a few years.)

$120/year “beginner”.
$240/year “professional”

It’s on the site linked above.

@kevinrichardson check your local library system online. Many U.S. library systems have digital collections including Lynda tutorials (full access) at no cost. Apply for the card online, access the digital collection.

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Ah, thank you. I should have seen that. I see that you can do $20/mo beginner as an alternative to annual payment To reduce the initial risk after the first free tutorials. They are worth the money.

Swift is unlike any language I’ve used. There are some things about it I’m really not fond of but overall it’s ok.

xCode is another topic altogether. There’s a lot to it and it changes, sometimes significantly, from one release to the next. I’m very frustrated with the current version, and Auto Layout, to the point that I’ve given up UIKit (at least for now) in favor of SwiftUI. Not that SwiftUI doesn’t have its own (steep) learning curve.

BYW there’s nothing that says you MUST use xCode. Although I think not using xCode to develop for iOS would be very difficult.

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If I may just ask

Swift is unlike any language I’ve used. There are some things about it I’m really not fond of but overall it’s ok.

I’m interested in learning some coding on Apple platforms as a hobby (so I’m leaning towards Swift and SwiftUI). I used to do heavy C++ 20 years ago (… that was even before the STL was… you know, standard :sweat_smile:)
How « unlike » or different would you say Swift is and why?

Supposedly Swift started out as “C-like” but more recently it has been drifting in other directions. I’ve read that it has been influenced by Haskell, which I know nothing about.

I’ve done a lot of C coding (which I liked), a lot of C++ coding (which I hated), and a lot of shell and Perl coding (which I liked). I think Swift is not like any of those, although it takes some elements from them, as well as Objective-C.

I know this doesn’t answer your question very well. I don’t think knowing C++ will hurt you if you decide to tackle Swift, but it won’t get you all the way there.

SwiftUI is really just Swift, used in a different way. I’m getting to like SwiftUI, in part because I was so frustrated with UIKit, Interface Builder, and Auto Layout. There is a project on GitHub called Suitcase that I’m going to look into at some point, its author calls it “a command line tool that can be programmed to display a SwiftUI interface that can trigger commands and scripts”. It sounds interesting…

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Thanks for your answer! I have to admit I don’t… fully understand :sweat_smile: but I’m definitely intrigued, and that’s always a good thing!

I know, it wasn’t a really great answer. There’s so much to learn: new language, new development environment, the staggering breadth and depth of Apple’s frameworks… And then they throw in SwiftUI!

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100 days of Swift and 100 days of SwiftUI are brilliant resources. I likewise found learning Swift, Swift UI, and apple frameworks overwhelming and these 2 (free!) programs narrows the scope in a directed way that had me comfortable working on the project I intended to work on in under 2 weeks.

To be fair I have experience with Rust, and Swift feels a like a looser version so most of my problems were with Swift UI and apple frameworks and not the language itself.

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No worries, I understand how these things can sometimes be gut feelings! Thanks for your answer, as well as @dustinknopoff – will look at that!

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Thank you ALL for your generosity and guidance. I now have several options to start my learning!

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