Computing Reviews
Today's Issue Hot Topics Search Browse Recommended My Account Log In
Review Help
Search
macOS programming for absolute beginners : developing apps using Swift and Xcode
Wang W., Apress, New York, NY, 2017. 647 pp. Type: Book (978-1-484226-61-2)
Date Reviewed: Feb 1 2018

Every year, thousands of developer positions are not filled because of a lack of skilled tech talent. In this context, a Swift (a programming language presented in 2014 by Apple) developer has become one of the most wanted profiles in the market. The goal of this book is to help readers learn the basics of Swift and Xcode (Apple’s integrated development environment (IDE) for developers) to initiate themselves in developing macOS applications.

It is a good book for somebody who knows the basics of programming and wants to learn how to develop using Swift. The first chapters introduce the basic concepts of programming (such as sentences, while, if-else, data types, methods, and classes, among others) and detail the interface of Xcode. In fact, the author claims that the intended audience of the book is people that want to learn coding, but I am skeptical that absolute beginners in programming can learn from scratch, with only this book, how to develop and all of the necessary concepts of object-oriented programming. While the book presents some of the basic concepts, not enough exercises are presented to help a novice reader mature with the concepts.

After introducing the basics of programming, several chapters explain how to create a user interface using Xcode. In fact, the book dedicates a chapter to each user interface element (such as buttons, text fields, labels, menus, and so on). In my opinion, the book does a very good job of explaining these topics to absolute beginners by presenting step-by-step examples on how to use each interface element. The book could be very useful for teaching novice developers how to create user interfaces from scratch.

There is also some material on testing and debugging. Specifically, the book explains how to find bugs and fix them by manually inspecting the source code and also by using the debugging tools provided by Xcode.

In summary, readers with some basic background in coding could use this book as a tutorial. I would also recommend the chapters dedicated to interfaces to people interested in getting started in app development because the book could be a good way to motivate them.

Reviewer:  Santiago Vidal Review #: CR145823 (1804-0160)
Bookmark and Share
  Reviewer Selected
 
 
General (D.1.0 )
 
 
Macintosh OS (D.4.0 ... )
 
Would you recommend this review?
yes
no
Other reviews under "General": Date
Problems in programming
Vitek A., Tvrdy I., Reinhardt R., Mohar B. (ed), Martinec M., Dolenc T., Batagelj V. (ed), John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1991. Type: Book (9780471930174)
Aug 1 1992
KNOs: KNowledge acquisition, dissemination, and manipulation Objects
Tsichritzis D., Fiume E., Gibbs S., Nierstrasz O. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 5(1): 96-112, 1987. Type: Article
Nov 1 1987
Programmer perceptions of productivity and programming tools
Hanson S. (ed), Rosinski R. Communications of the ACM 28(2): 180-189, 1985. Type: Article
Jul 1 1985
more...

E-Mail This Printer-Friendly
Send Your Comments
Contact Us
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.   Copyright 1999-2024 ThinkLoud®
Terms of Use
| Privacy Policy