Day 10 is done. A good time to write some summary.
Let’s begin with the question of why I need to learn Swift and especially SwiftUI. But why not? When I got my first MacBook recently, the first thing I checked was the well-known Xcode IDE.
I forgot to mention that in my previous life, I was coding in Visual Studio Code and loved it and thought there was nothing better than that Microsoft behemoth. Without mentioning VS Code, it wouldn’t be fair to continue my post. I could create my own websites, web apps, react apps, and even React.Native apps with it. Sometimes I wanted to smash my Windows laptop with a bat because nothing worked. Along with that, I must tell you that there are also lots of amazing plugins that you can install for Visual Studio Code. It is amazing how configurable this software is.
Ok. Let’s come back to my journey with Swift and iOS development. So I needed to change my nine-year-old laptop to something new and everything that had good battery size and productivity was around the same price regardless of whether it was an Apple or Windows device. Although MacBooks looked better and had a new processor and great battery life. So it was obvious to switch to Mac. You cannot imagine how difficult it was to get used to MacOS… After some time, I started noticing so many great features that just work out of the box for Apple without any manual intervention. For example screenshots, screen recording, and even the possibility to copy the text from any YouTube video when you pause and paste it into your IDE.
So I installed my Xcode and tried to code my first “Hello World”. It appeared to be so easy and intuitive to do. Before I was creating JavaScript and React JSX and even tried React.Native, but nothing was so easy as to start your first app on an iOS emulator on a MacBook. I have decided to give it a try and started to look for a nice Swift course to learn the basics. So I looked at Udemy but finally found Sean Allen's free courses and started with iOS Dev Launchpad (https://seanallen.teachable.com/p/ios-dev-launchpad). Dev Launchpad is aimed at basic Swift concepts and UIKit. I have completed it and felt more comfortable and thanks to Sean Allen I learned about the 100 Days of Swift and SwiftUI course. I decided to wait a little and continue with Sean’s next course SwiftUI Fundamentals (https://seanallen.teachable.com/p/swiftui-fundamentals).
After that and especially when the Appetizer app was completed something clicked, and it made me realize that I really like how everything works in Xcode and just wanted to continue. I know that I should go to Sean’s new courses and just keep progressing, but. And it is a big butt BUT I first need to come back to basics and just make sure I understand them well. So as my dance teacher always said foundation and basic steps are the most important for a good dancer. So I followed his advice and started my 100-day journey with “Hacking with Swift” (https://www.hackingwithswift.com) learning SwiftUI from the very beginning baby step at a time.
The reality is it is not 100 days, it is 101 days as it starts with Day 0 where important questions are raised and the main concepts to learn are mentioned. You will get the answer on Why SwiftUI? Or why UIKit? What are the most important 5 Core skills you need to master to be a good iOS developer? What are the common mistakes when people step on the road of learning? And even some extra skills that might be helpful in the future are mentioned. Telling all this I should say that you shouldn’t skip Day 0. It will help you to see your goal better and answer the most important question WHY?
Day 1 and Day 2 talk about how to begin and what to do. They start from data types such as Int, String, Bool, and Double and what you can do with them.
Day 3 and Day 4 cover complex types such as Array, Set, Dictionary, Enum, and when you should use which. The great stuff is that after every important concept, you have a short yes-no test to check yourself and see if you need to revise any concept once again. I really like the way it is done. You can watch a video or you can read an article or do both.
The next important concept is covered in Day 5 and it is “CONDITIONS”. If you code anything you must know that this one is very important and you cannot continue if do not understand it. Literally, any app has conditions. So if you do not get it, just repeat, repeat, and repeat until you get it.
Then you deep dive into another vital concept which is “LOOPS”. We do programs to avoid repetitive stuff and loops do it for you. Day 6 covers it and sums up conditions and loops. Do not forget to check your understanding by completing checkpoints and doing tests.
Functions, parameters, throwing functions, and returning functions are the concepts you should discover for yourself while going through days 7 and 8. Make sure you do your checkpoint 4 it will make you understand how to write functions and why.
Difficult stuff starts on day 9 and it is CLOSURES and passing functions into functions. You will need to make sure that it is clear in your mind first who to do it and when can we do it. Using my previous experience with JS and React I would say it exists there too, but in Swift, it is more elegant and easier to use.
You have to make sure that Day 10 will stay with you and the memory of what a struct is will not leave you. Structs are everywhere in iOS development and the faster you understand them the faster you start creating your apps. Tests here are getting more difficult and you have to pay attention to the smallest detail.
In conclusion, I would like to say a big thank you to PAUL HUDSON the creator of that course and advise every Swift beginner to start with it. You will learn so much stuff and even if you are not a beginner in coding just do it as you might be missing some small things that would make your life easier. Foundation is the most important part of building you as a future professional.
To be continued with Swifting 🏎️ Gears ⚙️.
10 done ✅. 90 to go 👨💻.