Reddit reviews Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (2nd Edition) (Big Nerd Ranch Guides)

If you don't have any prior knowledge with programming, I'd first recommend learning Python. If you do have programming knowledge, then jump straight into ObjC. I read these 3 books and my Objective-C knowledge grew so much. I highly recommend reading these books.

Book One

Book Two

Book Three

I'd recommend reading these books in the order I listed them.

After you have read those books, you'll want to get friendly with theos. Theos is what you will use to make your tweaks. Learn how to install/use it here: http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/Theos/Getting_Started.

Now, you can look at open source tweaks. There is a great place to see a lot of them: http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/Open_Source_Projects.

Once you are comfortable, get started writing tweaks!

Always feel free to PM me if you need any help or have a question. :)

Apple's own guide to Objective-C isn't awful. If you need some quick comparisons between Objective-C and Swift, I wrote up a bunch of equivalent code snippets a while back. You may also find the following useful:

• Big Nerd Ranch's Objective-C intro
  
• Ray Wenderlich
  
• NSHipster and objc.io are both good for picking up patterns
  

The Big Nerd Ranch book on Objective-C and then iOS Programming enabled me of the past couple months to become a very adept and capable iOS Programmer. I highly recommend them:
http://www.amazon.com/Objective-C-Programming-Ranch-Edition-Guides/dp/032194206X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1406161255&sr=8-2&keywords=big+nerd+ranch

http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Edition-Guides/dp/0321942051/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406161268&sr=8-1&keywords=big+nerd+ranch

1. The bootcamps that get the media publicity focus on intro to programming to "full stack" developer path, which, depending on your CS curriculum, should be what you get anyways - with added diversions into heavier CS stuff. Most college programs I know of do stuff like Operating Systems, Algorithm Analysis, Systems Programming (C/Bash/C++), Programming Languages (normally several small assignments done in several languages - i.e.: 'Implement quicksort in Ruby, C and Java') and Theory of Computation (my personal favorite) in addition to your 'Intro to Programming/Software Development' courses which is normally 2 semesters of basically learning a language (and the abstract concepts that apply to all languages) and then a Data Structures course.
   
   
2. Anyone in the industry that has knowledge of hiring processes will tell you that a GitHub with many side projects and neat things you've done for either side money or personal growth is more important than a 4.0 GPA.
   
   I did Java as my language in my undergrad (for the intro courses) and for higher level courses I did a mix of Objective-C, C, Ruby, Haskell, Clojure - whatever really seemed interesting or suited to solving the problem.
   
   The only way you come to better understand a language and it's nuances, in my opinion, is to use it and use it a lot. Finding out the power of a language (and all common languages do have power -albeit different from each other) is awesome. The more you use it, you'll find what you hate.
   
   I also read a bunch of side material - Extreme Programming Explained, Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch, and the ever popular Learn You a Haskell For Great Good! are some of the things I played with.
   
   If your curriculum doesn't require but offers a Capstone course, I would highly recommend it. Making a full product from start to finish is an amazing experience and it looks great on a resume.

Objective-C is a fine first language, it won't be as easy as others would but unless your going to give up easy don't worry. The place I started was with this book, it really does a great job and if you go through the whole thing it can help you a lot! Use google, reddit, and stack overflow for any questions you have in addition. Then once you read the whole thing and feel okay about it here is a link to some free podcasts to help you get in the mind of making apps and for some additional support. I would definitely recommend reading all the book first though because those lectures move pretty fast, and that course is set up to be taken after a few of the intro to programming classes are out of the way. Also take advantage of this /r/iOSProgramming

I'd learn objective-c first since a lot of iOS apps are still written in that. Swift is a bit easier to learn so once you get objective-c down you could move to that. There are lots of good tutorials online. Udemy's $19 course is pretty good. For books, I'd start with The Big Nerd Ranch.

Get this book from Amazon:

Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide
http://www.amazon.com/Objective-C-Programming-Ranch-Edition-Guides/dp/032194206X

It assumes zero knowledge and is the best programming book I ever read. (It's the one that got me started programming.) Then you can move on to their iOS Programming book. You might get stuck in that book. If so, go to Ray Wenderlich's tutorial site.

Have fun!

Ray Wenderlich's site has great tutorials. I'd strongly encourage you to work through these books - they should give you a pretty strong foundation:

• Programming in Objective-C - this will also give you a primer/background in C language features as well.
  
  
• BNR's Objective-C Programming - great overview of the language
  
  
• BNR's iOS Programming
  
  Ray Wenderlich also has some Swift tutorials but if you are just starting out I'd focus more on Objective-C for now as it will be very useful to know when looking at libraries that aren't ported to Swift.
  

In this order:
Codecademy: http://codecademy.com. Learn basics of programming.

Big Nerd Ranch Beginning Objective C Programming Guide

Big Nerd Ranch iOS Programming Guide

Treehouse: http://teamtreehouse.com.

The Stanford course is a great way to learn if you're into lectures.

If you prefer workshops and have the time and money to invest, you should go to the Big Nerd Ranch Beginning iOS Bootcamp. (Here's my extended writeup about it - in summary, it's a great way to learn since you get live instruction.)

Or if you like books, you can try Objective-C Programming, and follow that up with iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide.

Decide which learning style you prefer, then jump in. :)

Big Nerd Ranch Book for a student! Have a great weekend!

If you're just starting, I'd suggest Big Nerd Ranch's Objective-C Programming. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/032194206X?ie=UTF8&at=&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links

Can't go wrong with the Big Nerd Ranch. That'll get you going on obj-c and a simple starter app. Their iOS specific book is great if you don't mind translating some of the out of date stuff.

As the Big Nerd Ranch Objective-C Programming book so eloquently put it:
> The life of a programmer is mostly a never-ending struggle. Solving problems in an always-changing technical landscape means that programmers are always learning new things. In this case, “learning new things” is a euphemism for “battling against our own ignorance.” Even if a programmer is working with a familiar technology, sometimes the software we create is so complex that simply understanding what’s going wrong can often take an entire day.

>If you write code, you will struggle. Most professional programmers learn to struggle hour after hour, day after day, without getting (too) frustrated. This is another skill that will serve you well.

The Big Nerd Ranch Guides for Objective C and iOS Programming are just about the best books for absolute beginners, I've found. I had programming experience in Java and Android apps prior to working on iOS, but read the two books anyway (online tutorials are the faster way to go) just to see if I could pick up something in-depth, and I did.

http://www.amazon.com/Objective-C-Programming-Ranch-Edition-Guides/dp/032194206X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1408323435&sr=8-3&keywords=big+nerd+ranch+ios

http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Edition-Guides/dp/0321942051/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408323435&sr=8-1&keywords=big+nerd+ranch+ios

A couple of questions:

1. What Phone do you use?
   
2. What computer OS do you use?
   
   
   If you have a PC, you can only develop for Android.
   If you have a Mac, you can developer for iOS or Android.
   
   I highly recommend a book over a website. They are much more comprehensive and go into greater detail.
   
   Mac/iOS uses Objective-C.
   http://www.amazon.com/Objective-C-Programming-Ranch-Guide-Guides/dp/032194206X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419300572&sr=8-1&keywords=big+nerd+ranch+objective+c
   
   http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Guide-Guides/dp/0321942051/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419300564&sr=8-1&keywords=Big+Nerd+ranch+ios
   
   Android
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Android-Programming-Ranch-Guide-Guides/dp/0321804333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419300685&sr=8-1&keywords=Big+Nerd+ranch+android
   
   Big Nerd Ranch books are awesome.