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Swift Essentials - Second Edition
Get up and running lightning fast with this practical guide to building applications with Swift
248 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2014
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8 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 14, 2015
The author kept the initial introduction to the basic language syntax really brief and quickly made it more interesting and rewarding by replacing the command line REPL environment with Xcode integrated development environment and its playgrounds - a feature which provides a highly interactive environment for experimenting with the language. Not only that: he moved on to development of basic iOS applications, even before he covered all of the language features; introducing many of them only when they were first encountered in sample code.
Major part of the book is actually a step by step guide to iOS development in Swift for complete beginners. By the end of it the readers should have enough knowledge to write their first simple iOS application even without any previous experience. Along the way all the key concepts of the API are explained in detail, as well as a couple of peculiarities originating from the Objective-C era which could cause memory leaks or prematurely released memory, if not handled correctly. Even unit testing of Swift code was mentioned and encouraged.
The only thing I missed, was a more in-depth discussion of the language features and how they will impact the way the code will be written in it. Though, considering the target audience, it's not really fair to hold that against it. If nothing else, it makes up for it with a very extensive list of resources about Swift and iOS development which should satisfy even the most curious reader.
Major part of the book is actually a step by step guide to iOS development in Swift for complete beginners. By the end of it the readers should have enough knowledge to write their first simple iOS application even without any previous experience. Along the way all the key concepts of the API are explained in detail, as well as a couple of peculiarities originating from the Objective-C era which could cause memory leaks or prematurely released memory, if not handled correctly. Even unit testing of Swift code was mentioned and encouraged.
The only thing I missed, was a more in-depth discussion of the language features and how they will impact the way the code will be written in it. Though, considering the target audience, it's not really fair to hold that against it. If nothing else, it makes up for it with a very extensive list of resources about Swift and iOS development which should satisfy even the most curious reader.
February 26, 2015
A swift book to read about the apple language
I enjoyed reading this book as it gave me some interesting tips of how to approach swift from another perspective, the command line script/compiled side of the language, which could lead to interesting backend tools that increase developers productivity.
Another interesting section I was pleased to read lied within the realm of the playground, a scripting terminal with steroids I would like to call, of which the books explains methodically without going into much detail of the magic behind.
With this book, you will learn to do custom views, networking, xml/json parsing, story boards, but the part I considered more important was its whole app as a GIT repository viewer, of course everything handled using swift as core language.
However, I consider a big downside that the book does not include any chapters regarding unit test, or advanced swift topics (aka Functional or reactive); being said that, I would recommend it for developers of any platform, for those that have read the Apple swift books.
I enjoyed reading this book as it gave me some interesting tips of how to approach swift from another perspective, the command line script/compiled side of the language, which could lead to interesting backend tools that increase developers productivity.
Another interesting section I was pleased to read lied within the realm of the playground, a scripting terminal with steroids I would like to call, of which the books explains methodically without going into much detail of the magic behind.
With this book, you will learn to do custom views, networking, xml/json parsing, story boards, but the part I considered more important was its whole app as a GIT repository viewer, of course everything handled using swift as core language.
However, I consider a big downside that the book does not include any chapters regarding unit test, or advanced swift topics (aka Functional or reactive); being said that, I would recommend it for developers of any platform, for those that have read the Apple swift books.
January 28, 2015
Quick starter for learning swift and doing code from scratch
This book provides you a learning path from zero to an intermediate complexity iOS app to get the ropes of the language up to a decent level. Every step is explained in extensive detail so that you never feel lost within the code. If you never coded on OSX you won't feel lost as the first chapters provide every little bit you need to start code using xCode playgrounds up to proper iOS/OSX coding. The sole requirement is obviously a recent Mac to do the code demos along with a up-to-date xCode installation.
This book provides you a learning path from zero to an intermediate complexity iOS app to get the ropes of the language up to a decent level. Every step is explained in extensive detail so that you never feel lost within the code. If you never coded on OSX you won't feel lost as the first chapters provide every little bit you need to start code using xCode playgrounds up to proper iOS/OSX coding. The sole requirement is obviously a recent Mac to do the code demos along with a up-to-date xCode installation.
June 3, 2016
As a non-developer, I was broadly aware of Apple's announcement of Swift at their World-Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2014, and had picked up enough to know that Swift was being actively promoted as an alternative to Objective C for iOS and OS X application development.
However, in late 2015, when Apple announced that they were also contributing Swift to the open-source community, which had the added benefit of enabling Swift to be used on the Linux platform, alongside the Apple OS ecosystem, my interest was truly piqued.
Finally, in early 2016, I was hooked in by the announcement of the IBM Swift Sandbox, allowing one to tinker with the language via a web browser, without necessarily needing to install the Apple Xcode development environment on Mac OS X.
Pulling this all together, I was keen to read more about Swift, so the opportunity to read and review this book, Swift Essentials, Second Edition, was a boon.
The author, Dr Alex Blewitt, has written what is, to me, the perfect mixture of a textbook and a tutorial, providing a complete introduction to the language, even for those of us with little previous experience in the Apple development ecosystem.
The book is aimed at those intending to use Swift, either via the open-source Linux implementation or Apple's own Xcode IDE, and assumes no prior experience with iOS or OS X development. However, it does assume that the reader has some prior application development knowledge, most logically with C/C++ or Java.
Having briefly introduced the language, Dr Blewitt fairly quickly launches into an explanation of Swift data types - integers, floating point, strings, variables and collections. He then uses this as a foundation upon which he builds up the basic structure of a programming language - loops, iterations, functions and error handling.
From there, progress is swiftly made through the command-line interpreters, application compilation and the Swift playground, the latter being a graphical prototyping environment, before launching into "proper" iOS and watchOS app development.
Dr Blewitt does accurately compare and contrast the open-source Linux and Apple XCode approaches to Swift development, making it clear that one does need Xcode in order to develop apps for iOS and watchOS development, whereas one can use the open-source version of the language to create applications for other OS platforms, including Linux and Windows.
To be realistic, I'm unlikely to be entering the world of mobile application development any time soon, but, if I did have such a requirement, this book would be essential as a go-to reference.
At around 250 pages, the book should serve as a perfect introduction to the language, whilst also acting as a good source of information for those wishing to dig deeper into Swift.
In summary, I found this book to be extremely useful as both a tutorial and a reference, and I would recommend it to anyone seeking to acquire more experience with Swift.
Review by Dave Hay, CTO, IBM Cloud Client Technical Engagement
Originally posted: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/...
However, in late 2015, when Apple announced that they were also contributing Swift to the open-source community, which had the added benefit of enabling Swift to be used on the Linux platform, alongside the Apple OS ecosystem, my interest was truly piqued.
Finally, in early 2016, I was hooked in by the announcement of the IBM Swift Sandbox, allowing one to tinker with the language via a web browser, without necessarily needing to install the Apple Xcode development environment on Mac OS X.
Pulling this all together, I was keen to read more about Swift, so the opportunity to read and review this book, Swift Essentials, Second Edition, was a boon.
The author, Dr Alex Blewitt, has written what is, to me, the perfect mixture of a textbook and a tutorial, providing a complete introduction to the language, even for those of us with little previous experience in the Apple development ecosystem.
The book is aimed at those intending to use Swift, either via the open-source Linux implementation or Apple's own Xcode IDE, and assumes no prior experience with iOS or OS X development. However, it does assume that the reader has some prior application development knowledge, most logically with C/C++ or Java.
Having briefly introduced the language, Dr Blewitt fairly quickly launches into an explanation of Swift data types - integers, floating point, strings, variables and collections. He then uses this as a foundation upon which he builds up the basic structure of a programming language - loops, iterations, functions and error handling.
From there, progress is swiftly made through the command-line interpreters, application compilation and the Swift playground, the latter being a graphical prototyping environment, before launching into "proper" iOS and watchOS app development.
Dr Blewitt does accurately compare and contrast the open-source Linux and Apple XCode approaches to Swift development, making it clear that one does need Xcode in order to develop apps for iOS and watchOS development, whereas one can use the open-source version of the language to create applications for other OS platforms, including Linux and Windows.
To be realistic, I'm unlikely to be entering the world of mobile application development any time soon, but, if I did have such a requirement, this book would be essential as a go-to reference.
At around 250 pages, the book should serve as a perfect introduction to the language, whilst also acting as a good source of information for those wishing to dig deeper into Swift.
In summary, I found this book to be extremely useful as both a tutorial and a reference, and I would recommend it to anyone seeking to acquire more experience with Swift.
Review by Dave Hay, CTO, IBM Cloud Client Technical Engagement
Originally posted: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/...
March 25, 2016
Das Buch ist ein guter Einstieg in die aktuelle Open Source Version von Swift. Der Leser bekommt die Grundlagen an die Hand, um einen Git-Browser für das iPhone zu entwickeln. Erweitert werden die Kenntnisse durch die Umsetzung der Git-Browser-Anwendung auf die Apple Watch.
Die 250 Seiten reichen nicht, um den vollen Umfang der Sprache Swift zu erlernen. Allerdings bietet das Buch ein eigenes Kapitel mit weiteren Links zu Blogs, Twitter-Accounts, Tutorials und Meetups.
Der Text wird durch ausreichend Screenshots erklärt, somit hat auch ein Anfänger schnell die Beispiele umgesetzt.
Die 250 Seiten reichen nicht, um den vollen Umfang der Sprache Swift zu erlernen. Allerdings bietet das Buch ein eigenes Kapitel mit weiteren Links zu Blogs, Twitter-Accounts, Tutorials und Meetups.
Der Text wird durch ausreichend Screenshots erklärt, somit hat auch ein Anfänger schnell die Beispiele umgesetzt.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews