On my way to becoming a Developer for IOS !!!!

vansmith

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How about I translate?

Me old . . . Computer big shiny box (big as a car) when me learn to program, no fancy schmancy graphics based stuff!
Hahaha, much better. :p

But you know, the computers I used in high school were no fancy boxes. I remember them running Windows 98 and people talking about the new Windows release (XP) that needed so many more system resources. I even remember arguing with someone (this part probably doesn't surprise you though, haha) about XP's unnecessary bloat and eye-candy (what do you mean "green start button"? That looks like a child's operating system with all that colour!).

This also when I took an interest in Linux. I had to engage in some negotiation with my teacher to let me use the school's computers to download the three cd images that comprised Red Hat 9 because I still had dial-up at home.

I have this sudden urge to code something in Basic right now...
 
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ROFL, when I was in HS Windows 98 didn't exist yet :D We had Apple II's, later on some Mac's and some DOS based machines. Learning basic (long before HS) (and later assembly) on ones own in those days was fun
 

vansmith

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Haha, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were the OSes of choice for my elementary school. I think we may have had a Mac or two as well (no idea what model though). That goes to show how old I am. ;)
 
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If you want to do iOS development, then just focus on Objective C for now, although Python (and various other languages) a good to know/learn at some point (and may be easier to a degree); objective C is what you'll need and delaying working on learning it will just make you take that much longer until you can really develop apps (especially when you have to absorb how memory is handled in Obj-C which is somewhat different from other languages regardless of whether or not you use ARC).

And this is why forums are so informative, we get a wide range of answers/opinions.
Thanks

Good luck with it. With a goal in mind and the dedication to reach it, you should be able to reach your goal!

I am determined to do this. How long it will take me is another question lol
I can't work anymore, taken out of the prime of my life @40 and I don't want to be down "The Mens Shed" crippling around, reminiscing about times go by and basically feeling sorry for myself. I want to be pro-active and actually do something now, and learn what i need to before it does get too late for me. In that my pain takes away the ability or i loose all interest.
My partner knows me and she thinks i can do it, so if i have someone believing in me, its a lot easier to believe in myself. I have my idea, now i need to figure out how i want to have it look on a screen and how to interact with it on screen (i think i need this before even thinking of writing 1 line of code)

Personally I really enjoy iOS development and Obj-C - it's always fun to be able to create something and see it in action.

Action makes me think of games. Ill leave that to the professionals first

One tip though - I know people are suggesting to put off the $99 developer account (which is understandable, since $100 for most of us is not cheap) - don't wait until just before you're ready to submit, the developer account is needed to do debugging on a device which you'll need to do prior to submission since things work in the simulator that won't work on an actual device (what comes with Xcode 4 is a simulator, not an emulator :) )

Ill keep that in mind. Cheers

For all I know, TM will love Obj-C syntax. ;)

Me and syntax could be one sensei




Good point. As someone who doesn't do iOS development, I can only talk from a general perspective which would explain why I skipped over this. However, I still think you should wait until you determine that this is indeed what you want to do.

We will see. All in all it could be interesting to dive right in and see what it is all about behind closed doors. And it could get me a ticket to the next Keynote and i could do a Live M-F Blog of it ;)


As an alternative, have you considered doing this as a web application? You can do some mighty fine things with web tools, you'd get cross platform support and web apps perform reasonably well (not native application well but respectably so). Plus, it's free and you don't have to get Apple's approval.

I know where the future is and that is on mobile platforms. Thanks anyways for the suggestion.
 

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I know where the future is and that is on mobile platforms. Thanks anyways for the suggestion.
That's my point though - web applications can work wonders on mobile devices. Not only that but they are platform agnostic (a new term for you to learn) - you can target iOS, Android and WP7/8 without making a single change.

Mobile devices run web applications really well especially when you start using mobile web frameworks inlcuding, but not limited to, jQuery Mobile and Sencha. Assuming your application can make do with the limitations of mobile web development, it may very well be the smarter route. Now, I'm not trying to convince you to go this route but it's worth looking at all your options before you dive in head first into Obj-C/native development.
 
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What a great discussion this turned out to be :) Been a long time since I genuinely enjoyed reading a thread :-D The more I read on though, the more I would pick Obj-C and XCode tools straight from the start and ditch stuff like suggested turbo pascal ... just go with OOP from the start, I think it's even much easier to understand without the "burden" of different approaches. The way I see it, for those of us who have an understanding of other languages before getting into Obj-C the only real plus is more time and an easier approach to syntax and constructs, BUT those are different. As far as understanding the principles of OOP why not choose Obj-C? I actually mean this as a question since I cannot provide any fact to support this and would like the answer to that, is Obj-C suitable to start with? I would imagine it's not such a bad choice.

Am I the only one who would suggest even Smalltalk as a first language? And Obj-C is based on Smalltalk as far as message handling (between objects) goes :)

As for making the app a web application - that would be missing the point, tattooed's dream come true is a notch in the App Store lineup ;-) So I won't comment on the pros and cons :p

I do admire and respect the optimism and drive to do this, I haven't got myself to dig deeper in XCode and Obj-C in a few years even though I have an IT background - although my current field is a bit different. Just for that, take the plunge into unknown waters! I should join you Tattooed and start with Obj-C as well :-D

Yeah, I'm rambling again ... sorry for that :-D
 
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Oh i get now Van what you are trying to say, re: web based Applications, but into the favoured App Store is where I'm aiming.

Im with you scathe, about Obj-C, and for the way i know myself, unless any of the other code baring ways, in reality, if it doesn't give me a sure fire way of a short cut to understanding Obj-C then i really only want to learn the one way.
Yes i was good at Maths and Science at school A+ all round, i was smart to the point i was always scolded for finishing early and disrupting the rest of the class, because it was to easy to a point, i never pushed myself either, but the following 20 odd yearswasnt as kind to me and having gone off the rails in the legal and not so legal, i don't think i have the head for it now to take on too much at once. Like learning one thing to see how it correlates to the other. Im happy to stay with the one thing Obj-C, if in the end it does what its meant to and gets me to my final destination. if i take on 2 things, i know for sure ill end up getting kefuddled, mixed up, not enjoying it and then throwing what could be a good earner in the bin and never knowing what i could of been.
I am willing to put in the time to learn this Obj-C even though it can and will be challenging at times.
my only thing I'm questioning atm, is do i jump straight in and try to learn it as I'm trying to develop my App, or do i sit back in my comfy lounge, notebook on lap and spend the next 1000hrs learning as much as i can of Obj-C before i dive into my idea and hope someone else doesn't think of it first ?? And no what i have in mind, there isn't a App that i could find out there that does exactly what I'm thinking of doing.
Hmm decisions decisions lol

i appreciate the support here and please feel free to use this thread as much as you like to ramble on about anything code like, Obj-C like, App like things. One and for all and the more the better as the more i learn about others take on doing this the better :)

Cheers Brent
 
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PS if anyone knows of good easy to decipher sources for Obj-C please feel free to link me. Even if it comes in Paper, you know that stuff thats made from trees. Im willing to fork out $ for good paper. Ill see it as a investment.

Cheers
 
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I once started reading this book

It starts at the basics with some introduction to programming and goes on to introduce Xcode and the Cocoa toolkit - focusing on the Objective-C language. I'm not saying it's the right resource for you, it's just what I looked at. Unfortunately I didn't give it that much time and skimmed most of the book only looking at what I was interested in. It's meant for absolute beginners, which I suppose is a good thing at this point :)
 
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I once started reading this book
It's meant for absolute beginners, which I suppose is a good thing at this point :)

TY and yes absolute beginner. I did once use to write code for the commodore64, originally making games for the class to play when they had finished there 'other' computing work. If only i had of followed my passion through back then :(
 
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Commodore 64, nice :-D
 

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I actually mean this as a question since I cannot provide any fact to support this and would like the answer to that, is Obj-C suitable to start with?
Because it's ugly? This is why I think everyone should write applictions in Python. :p

I admit that my dislike of Obj-C is purely personal and not based in fact. It obviously works for serious programmers though.

Oh, and I just looked at Smalltalk code - it looks very odd but I have the urge to try it.

Not being an Obj-C programmer, I can't recommend any specific book but I will attest to the value of a good book. I can't tell you how much better and easier programming is when you have a great book that not only teaches you the language but serves as a great reference.
 
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Because it's ugly? This is why I think everyone should write applictions in Python. :p

Oh, and I just looked at Smalltalk code - it looks very odd but I have the urge to try it.
It is ugly, but that's something I hope you can get used to over time and hopefully appreciate possible advantages of different syntax.

Smalltalk isn't ugly per say, but it's COMPLETELY different from all of your languages like Python :) If you ever try it, all you need to remember is that everything is either an object or a message - that's it :) Sounds trivial, right?

Not being an Obj-C programmer, I can't recommend any specific book but I will attest to the value of a good book. I can't tell you how much better and easier programming is when you have a great book that not only teaches you the language but serves as a great reference.
Well, the best thing is a classroom course on the subject - not necessarily a school course though meaning high school or college.
 

vansmith

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It is ugly, but that's something I hope you can get used to over time and hopefully appreciate possible advantages of different syntax.
Oh, I can appreciate different syntax. In fact, I find Vala's syntax to be a nice blend of curly brace languages and more "readable" languages like Ruby and Python.

Smalltalk isn't ugly per say, but it's COMPLETELY different from all of your languages like Python :) If you ever try it, all you need to remember is that everything is either an object or a message - that's it :) Sounds trivial, right?
I can do you one better on the "completely different" - Lisp. ;)

So as to give Obj-C some points, I did a little test to highlight the value of machine code produced by languages like Obj-C over interpreted code (like Python). Here are the speed results of the loops I posted earlier:

Obj-C binary:
- Build Time: 4.735s
- Execution Time: 0.112s

Python script:
- Execution Time: 0.115s

There you have it - the Obj-C binary is 0.003 seconds faster at looping to 100. ;)

Looping to 10,000 produced some interesting results:

Obj-C execution time: 8.526s
Python execution time: 0.140s

I can't explain that one.
 
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vansmith

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I forgot to suggest videos - YouTube can be your friend here. There's definitely a benefit to having a visual complement to instructions that, even with pictures, you just can't get in a book. Videos also tend to target the newest version of software which a book can only do for so long.
 
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I find that the videos help me a lot more than the books and such do. I don't necessarily learn too well by following a book. I have to have things explained to me by an actual person otherwise all I'm doing is memorizing what's being said.
What I am doing with the videos is watching them from the beginning (each of the links I gave you are a series of vids), writing the programs along with them, and re-watching each one until there is nothing they say in it that doesn't make sense to me. Then after I get it, I will erase everything that I just typed in xcode and see how well I do at writing the program I just learned on my own.
I've even noticed in the last few days that sometimes when they give an overview of what they will doing, I actually start writing it before they tell me what to do because the language just starts to make sense to me! I've also noticed that there are some mistakes they will make in their code and not notice it until later but I notice it right away.
So if you are like me, the videos will help you ALOT!
 
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Thats good to here.
Im a bit like that, as with my jobs in the past i was very hands on and learnt the ins and outs of it, and my problem was once i had, (roughly 6mnths) i would get bored, itchy feet and be looking for a new job. WIth this though i think with everything i do will be a challenge so hopefully thats enough to keep me interested, and on track.

Cheers
 
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Great Post!

I have been aspiring to program also, however not having any knowleage of how to do it, I'll tell you what I have been doing.

I purchased " Programming For Dummies" I really liked this book, because It taught me some of the basic foundations of programing,common terms like, Variables, if then statements, strings, boolan exprestions, ect, there are examples of different lauguages doing the same thing, like printing " Hello World " on the screen, and how each laguage handels basic math.

After getting into this book for a bit I decided to learn C++, different forums suggested learning C++ before learning Objective-C and It made sence. So I have been poking around that for a bit.

I also found this neat app for my iPad called "Code to GO" you can wright code in a bunch of different langauges and the app uses there Linux servers to compile the programs ( you have to be online for the compiler to work ) what is nice all of the different languages have samples of "Hello World"
It was 3 or 4 bucks and deffinatly worth checking out, I would not wright a giant app with it but to practice coding, I think it is great.

So after reading this I am convinced that Objective-C is what I need to learn, The YouTube videos that were posted are great! I worked through a few and after making some adjustment to take into account that I am using XCode 4.3 and the videos use XCode 3. they work nicly.

I found an e-book version of "Mac Programming for Aabsolute Beginners" that web site has a lot of great titles and they are free.

I hope some of this helps
John
 

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