Reddit reviews iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (3rd Edition) (Big Nerd Ranch Guides)
We found 15 Reddit comments about iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (3rd Edition) (Big Nerd Ranch Guides). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
If you can wait 10 more days, iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (3rd Edition) will be released. This is the one I'm waiting for. It will be covering iOS 5.1 and Xcode 4.3.
Here's a review
of the original book.
Note that even though the Amazon page says April 1, one of its co-authors has confirmed on Twitter that it will be available starting March 23.
I found iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide to be an excellent introduction to both iOS and Objective-C. After reading the first few chapters and trying some of the examples you'll be primed to tackle the official docs.
You didn't ask me the question, but I'm learning with the same material.
I just finished working through the Big Nerd Ranch Objective-C book and found it extremely accessible and enjoyable. I started the iOS book yesterday and worked through five chapters - if you're genuinely interested in learning Objective-C and iOS these books are difficult to put down. Be aware that the newest edition of the BNR Objective-C is due at the end of November and the iOS book due at the end of December.
Paul Solt's course provides video content that I have found to be beneficial supplementary content to the BNR books. Working through the book along with Paul's course has helped me cement the material. He posted a coupon to take the course for free ~1 week ago. Not sure the coupon is still valid or not.
Read this, then read this.
I'm currently working through the Big Nerd Ranch books which are fantastic. They have such a good way of teaching - you are constantly writing code and there are a lot of challenges for you to complete at the end of chapters. I picked them up after recommendations from many other redditors.
They have two books:
I started with the first (as I would suggest you do) and would definitely recommend both.
I'm considering starting off with this and then moving onto this book
Aside from official documentation, these 2 resources Big Nerd Ranch and Ray Wenderlich were all I ever needed.
I am a java developer and took a course on iOS coding when I was getting my CS degree, but haven't touched it since graduation. 3 months ago I decided I wanted to get back in to it and maybe make a career change. I knew a lot has changed so I wanted to start from the beginning. After looking around for a bit on where to start, I went with the Big Nerd Ranch iOS Programming book, Amazon link. This was an awesome place to start. The book flows well and it really builds on itself. Their online forums is a great resource when you get stuck, there was always at least one person that had encountered any problem I ran in to and had already posted about it along with a solution. After I was finished with the book I started going through the Ray Wenderlich tutorials and they have helped a ton, especially after gaining a great understanding through the BNR book. In a relatively short time I have a great understanding of iOS and am just building on it by making up my own side projects with various features to the app and then sitting down and figuring out how to implement these features. Best of luck to you!
Buy these two books:
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Objective-C-Edition-Developers-Library/dp/0321811909/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346361656&sr=8-2&keywords=objective+c
http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Edition-Guides/dp/0321821521/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1346361656&sr=8-4&keywords=objective+c
If you have programming experience it should be relatively easy to pick up. Unfortunately C doesn't have memory management ("garbage collection") which you may be used to in other programming languages. understanding this concept was probably the hardest part of learning Objective C.
Invest in Kochan's Programming in Objective-C. One of the best programming books I've ever read.
Then once you have good unserstanding of Objective-C's syntax and data structures, I recommend iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide.
I went from no experience with Objective-C to getting hired as an iPhone programmer in a month and a half reading these books.
After these, when I come across something I don't know how to do, I usually look here first: Ray Wenderlich. Their tutorials are very very current. I go through them just to learn about iOS/Xcode features I didn't even know existed (there are tons!!).
I've tried (sometimes successfully) learning programming languages from free online resources (especially when I can't find good books), but I really think you shouldn't miss out on these. The cost is pretty minimal considering you just bought an Apple computer.
This kind of object oriented programming is pretty different from the web languages you have gone through. I think the first two books should help you get a basic understanding of Model, View, Controller design.
Finally, use a better title when asking for help!
Since you're on a Mac, if you're looking at OS X and iOS development, I'd recommend Objective-C.
As for books on the subject, I would recommend Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide and for you to also read the free online tutorial BecomeAnXcoder.
You might also want to look into getting Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X and iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide should you want to further your Cocoa and iOS knowledge respectively.
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As for Mac IDEs, for Objective-C or C++, look at XCode (take a look in the Mac App Store).
For Java, I think Eclipse is pretty much the only option?
Watch the first several episodes of the Stanford courses on iTunes U. They're free, and quite good at teaching Obj-C and the basics of the SDK. You will need to have a basic understanding of OO programming before you start.
iOS Programming The Big Nerd Ranch GuideThe best dead tree book that I've seen for the subject. Read the reviews on amazon.
Starting iOS Development blog post with suggestions.
And of course the best advice for anyone learning anything in programming: Just start doing it, google when you hit a roadblock, it'll come to you with time.
I'm actually in almost the same exact situation as you are. I'm halfway through Big Nerd Ranch's Obj-C book and am looking to start creating apps as soon as possible. I actually purchased the Big nerd ranch iOS book today. Going to see how the book works out for me.
Okay. Depending on what parts of the framework "very simple" involves, and with the stipulation that you're building a prototype that you can pretty up later, I think it's possible, given your background.
Go get the Big Nerd Ranch book for iOS Programming:
http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Edition-Guides/dp/0321821521
Get it in a store or rush ship it. Don't bother trying to go through the whole book—in a week or whatever—like the one guy suggested. If you were in an immersion course at the Big Nerd Ranch, with dynamic, experienced instructors, and a room full of motivated fellow students, I'm sure you could more or less touch on all of it in a week. But that's not your situation. Just concentrate on the intro to Objective-C. Then, look to see what parts apply to you.
In the meantime, watch the first few episodes at the University of California, Berkeley that they have on iTunes about iPhone programming. Don't watch them all. If there are one or two past the first couple of intros that directly apply to your app, watch those.
The Ray Wenderlich are good tutorials, as someone else suggested.
Google the shit out of anything on StackOverflow that applies to your app.
Finally, if you can reveal anything about the structure of your app, without, of course, giving away this million dollar idea (I'm giving you a hard time, just for fun, so go with it!), tell us. We can give you better answers as to what to look for.
Best of luck!
This is the book i recommend to everyone. I found it helpful.