Every year more and more people learn how to code – in the next four years 8 million people will become developers 🙂 source
I was lucky to have a computer when I was young and by the time I was 10 I was writing my first programs. When I was 12 I was making my own games with 16 colors 🙂
The educational material I had access to then was limited – only a few books. But those few book I had where really fun to read and had a lot of examples and exercises. Most beginner books now are just scratching the surface of programming and focus more on syntax than anything else.
Together with a friend we wrote a book for beginners. Initially we wanted to make an iOS course but we kept on hitting the same wall – there was no resource that will teach people enough programming to be able to make apps. We decided to make that resource – and than everything – make it available for everyone – the book is free to read on our site.
The book was designed using a principle named Cascading Information Theory, which is used in games. It gives the reader the minimum possible snippets of information to gain the appropriate level of understanding at each point during the book.
We also made an app that helps you to finish the exercises from the book. The app gives analyses your code to check for common mistakes and gives you feedback on you solution. It basically replaces the need for a tutor in the first stages of learning programming.
The book gradually shows the use of keywords, concepts and new syntax giving you time to practice every one of them and get comfortable using it. Solving and understating the exercises from the book will teach you how to solve many of the problems you will be facing when developing apps.
Thanks to the people who give us feedback on their experience with the book we are constantly updating and polishing it. The most common request was more exercises – when we reached 100 exercises we where having doubts that people will enjoy solving so many problems. We were wrong! We are going to keep adding exercises to the book and sending you guys updates.
You can read more about our book and app here.
Darrell Nicholas the author of iOS Learning Weekly wrote a review and mentioned our app in one of his issues 🙂
This is a WAY COOL app for learning Swift. If you are new to the language, or just want to solidify what you know, this interactive app from “We ❤ Swift” is just the tool you’re looking for. There’s a demo version that allows you to download it and try out the first 2 chapters. The lessons are short, to the point, and can get pretty tricky. I tried it out and I think I am hooked on it. I have seen a tool like this for python before, but it was web-based and a long time ago.
This is a downloadable Mac app, that you run on your own computer. It opens an Xcode playground with a problem for you to solve. It gives you all the information you need, plus hints and a button to open the corresponding chapter to see the theory behind what you are working on. When you think you have the problem solved, there is a button to submit your answer. The app will run a battery of tests to see if you really are correct and display the results.
This is one of those things where you need to keep an eye on the time, because before you know it, you will have spent hours playing with it. It’s very addictive and I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn or brush up their Swift skills.
You can use the code LEARNTOCODE for a $10 discount on the app and book.
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