Bob, how do I become an iOS developer

But this is not my desktop

I’ve been there, too. When I first learned iOS, I could only imagine it was like a behemoth. I bought some online courses and some books – “Let you make 18 apps and be the only course for paid iOS developers!” – I was hooked! This is awesome!

Before I knew nothing about super! ,? “, “as”, “if let”, I became a programming ape, writing code like a zombie. If you’re at this stage, learn Swift first, although it doesn’t have much to do with iOS. But it’s laying the foundation for later learning. In the same way, before you can write a book, you must learn grammar and the alphabet. Believe me, you can get this book published if you insist!

If you’re not familiar with the concepts in Swift, look at the red flags on the left side of Xcode. Make sure you understand,

delegateextensionProtocoloptionalssupergenericstype castingerror handlingenumclosurescompletion handlersproperty observeroverrideclass vs struct

Don’t worry, I’ve summed up all the essentials of being an iOS developer here.

It really depends on how familiar you are with the core concepts of Swift, especially if you are learning the iOS ecosystem.

You don’t need to know everything in iOS. In fact, the amount of knowledge is too great. It’s hard enough to learn so many classes and frameworks, and they’re not open source, so we developers don’t really know the implementation details.

So, I compare iOS development to operating a microwave oven. All you have to do is read the manual, but read the manual only if you can understand the meaning of the words and discover the unique mode of operation.

For example, when you go to heat it up, you press a few buttons and the dial starts to spin, and a yellow light starts to shine on the wall of the stove. That’s the way it works, because apple engineers have designed it to work. But as an iOS developer, it’s your job to figure out why they’re doing it. For another example, I ask, “How does this spinning plate heat the food?” . Like this, you don’t really need to know the ins and outs of electromagnetism, although it does help.

To finish with a couple more examples, I’ll ask, why did the Apple engineers implement the Delegate pattern and MVC? Learn to discover their motivations. If you get results from Google, stick with it!

Don’t use open source projects unless you have the ability to implement the same functionality yourself

IOS developers rely on open source projects to implement the web, animation, and UI. However, beginners usually download these libraries directly to use them. It makes everything so easy that they can’t learn anything.

That’s the problem. Imagine that you only need to do a very simple task and you need to import a huge library. It’s like opening a tiny bottle of soda with a sharp Swiss Army knife. There’s no need to be overqualified. But when you have to add this library, your project becomes bloated.

If you don’t know how to make these features and effects, study them. This is the spirit of “open source”, download their code and start dissecting it, and if necessary, copy it “aboveboard”.

To do this successfully, you must understand Access Control and have a deep understanding of object-oriented programming.

Don’t get me wrong, I use these open source libraries a lot, but I use them because I know how to implement them without them. More importantly, using these open source libraries saves me a lot of time to do what I want to do.

I like to open my hands when I ride my bike. I really enjoy it. Once the critical moment, I can quickly grasp the handle to control the direction. If I didn’t know how to ride a bike, this would all be ridiculous.

We need to know the difference between ViewDidLoad, ViewWillAppear, ViewDidDisappear. Also understand why we use ViewWillAppear instead of ViewDidLoad for network logic.

Learn what UIApplicataion does and why AppDelegate exists at all. I’ve uploaded a video about it on YouTube.

On the App lifecycle (YouTube)

I often say that learning an API is like memorizing words. In college I had to learn thousands of words for exams. Of course, even though I’ve forgotten all about it now, I’m pretty confident about how well I learned.

Some people don’t know where to take notes. You don’t need a special website, just look at it first. You can share them on Medium, or upload your notes on GitHub. Make a Youtube video, even if it’s private, and practice on your computer.

This is not just a place where you store information, but also a place where others can search for your articles and help others with the same problem. I believe what goes around comes around, not to mention building your personal brand and expanding your market.

I’m sure you’d like to know how I started blogging

What I’ve Learned in 10 Weeks of blogging (LinkedIn)

Usually, we look to the great gods for guidance and help. However, when faced with a problem, it is ok to try to avoid it, because then you will find that it is not the best solution.

Learning is on your own. If you rely on tutorials all the time, you will lose your ability to fish. I mean, while it’s fine for you to continue with my tutorials, if you want to be a sustainable iOS developer, you should learn to document what you’ve learned yourself. Try reading the API guidelines provided by Apple and try to challenge yourself. Sometimes you just need to constantly read documents to beat yourself up to improve.

In fact, I’ve been able to read Swift’s official documentation cover to cover more than three times and memorize its various examples. Learning by reading documents is also a learning skill.

Tutorials are often packaged in a way that students can easily understand, but there is no doubt that they don’t cover much of the basics. For example, I would not have been able to fully learn the Swift Foundation library by just going through the tutorial.

Reading the tutorial is ok. I used to do it all the time. However, if you find a better way to learn, keep your eyes open. As the mentor of this blog, I can say that my approach is not necessarily the best, because no one is perfect.