DevFright

Learning Programming

How to Learn Xcode

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Developing apps for the Mac or the various iOS devices requires knowledge of Xcode. Xcode is a complete developer toolset that provides all the software necessary to start coding.

The download is free and can be grabbed via the Mac App Store or via developer.apple.com. The interface is quite overwhelming at first if you are unfamiliar with Objective-C and how to create applications using this particular language. Although it all looks complicated on first glance, you can soon become acquainted with the more common features and learn the rest as and when you need them.

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Finding a Cheap Mac for iOS Development

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There may be some of you interested in finding a cheap Mac so that you can begin developing iOS apps. Apple requires that you use a Mac to develop iOS apps. For those of you who already have a Mac, that’s great news as you can go ahead and download a free copy of xcode from the Mac App store, or direct from the Apple Developer website.

For those who do not have access to a Mac and are looking for a cheap option, [Read more…]

Learning the Basics of iOS Developing – Week 1

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Starting at the beginning in iOS developing can be quite overwhelming. My first thoughts were to just crack on with loading up Xcode and creating my first very simple app. The first hurdle I got to was that Xcode just has too many options that I don’t understand. On opening it you get to create a new project, but deciding what options to select is a challenge in its self.

The good news is that Apple doesn’t leave you guessing. [Read more…]

Xcode On the iPad – Not Likely

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Now that the iPad is a few years old and people are using them more in day to day work, a common question asked in forums is that of being able to develop apps for the iPad on the iPad. The problem with this is that Apple has no plans that I know of to launch Xcode for the iPad. The reason for this is likely to be related to how tightly integrated the frameworks are with Mac OS X.

To develop for iOS devices while on the go typically requires that you have a MacBook running OS X along with Xcode installed. For some of us, we prefer to carry just an iPad around due to the impressive battery life, instant on and smaller form factor which all make it ideal to throw in a bag.

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Apple Guide on How to Create Apps

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Apple has created a handy guide on how to begin learning to create iOS apps. The new guide goes over what you need, where to begin and what documents you need to read to get going. Currently, I am working through the Apple documents and an Objective-C for dummies book found in Week 1 and to be blunt… it’s a lot of reading.

On your path of leaning, expect to be doing a lot of reading and a lot of coding to practice what you are learning. I have found that one of the keys to learning is trying to stop and understand the challenge that you just did. That could be creating a new struct, typedef or even something completely different. If you don’t understand why you are doing something the way you are being taught, then step back and try look at the bigger picture of what you are doing.

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CS106A Lecture 3 Notes

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Lecture 3 of CS106A covers the last 3 chapters of Karel the Robot. In particular, it covers stepwise refinement, algorithms as well as gives more details about SuperKarel and what extras he can do. Karel is coming to an end after this lecture, at which point you will move on to specific Java rather than being stuck at Java with the limitations of Karel.

Although all lectures are important to watch and take note, this one provides some good examples of the top-down design approach and how you break a program down/decompose it with stepwise refinement. It’s well worth watching and paying attention to this part. [Read more…]

What are Pre-conditions and Post-Conditions in Programming?

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I briefly mentioned in my post titled What is Top-down Design and Stepwise Refinement? about pre-conditions and post-conditions. In this post I want to explain the two essential points in greater detail.

These two principles are one of the keys to being effective in programming.

What are Pre-conditions?

Lets start with the first of the two which is titled pre-conditions. A pre-condition in its most simple form is a condition that needs to be “true” for a method to be called. This means that the method you are calling is expecting something to be in place before or at the point of the method being called. [Read more…]

What is Top-down Design, Stepwise Refinement and Decomposition?

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Near the beginning of learning Java, you will hear something about top-down design, stepwise refinement and decomposition. This post today will explain what those terms mean as well as provide the reason why you need to tackle programming design with this approach in mind.

Just for the sake of clarity, top-down design is the process of stepwise design and decomposition.

Before you start writing any code for a new program you want to create, you first need to design the program or at least have a specification so that you know exactly what you need to create. [Read more…]