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I keep hunting for such a post specifically for an iOS Developer.. to get beyond the initial frameworks and learn processes and flows

by sonny9 12y ago

sophacles 12y ago
Everyone hates to do it, but a lot of this comes from reading code. The more code you read, the more you'll learn to understand idioms, styles, what makes things good and bad for understandability. Then you'll be able to do it yourself. Another point to make: while every language has it's own idiom and style, there are also lots of "clean code" lessons that apply across languages, so guides about, e.g. python, translate somewhat into objective c.
- ddebernardy 12y ago
  It depends on what code you read, though. Think of PHP devs that learn from WordPress, for instance. It's not exactly setting a great example... (Though to their credit, WordPress improved somewhat in recent years.)
  - sophacles 12y ago
    On the one hand, sure this makes some sense, on the other, it maybe means read more code... (i know this sounds sort of snarky). For example, if I wanted to write a novel, and had only read say, _A Tale of Two Cities_ I might thing I needed to include a bunch of broad social statements, and make my point through strongly contrasting scenes and juxtaposition. If I had only read Dickens, I might think writing a novel entailed finding only strange characters, pointing out social flaws. Keeping a thematic style that was about confusing light and dark with the normal associations. And so on. If I had only read Twilight, I wouldn't care much about dialog or character development. I wouldn't understand that there are things you can do thematically without exposition. If however read Dickens, and Hemingway, and Tolkein and Dan Brown, and Stephanie Meyer and ... I would have a different understanding of what could go into a novel. I would be able to see where story arc intersects with bigger themes and character development. I would see different ways of structuring sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and even whole books. None of this reading of course will make me a great author, writing does that, but a wide exposure will certainly help me understand where my writing is working vs where it isn't, it will help me understand how to structure things, help me shape my own work. I consider the same to be true of code. The folks that only read WordPress code have a very limited understanding of possibilities. The folks who have read that, and rails and django, and jekyll and flask and ... will see a wide range of styles, ideas about structure, and so on. An aside: Wordpress has some pretty ugly parts, but there are some ideas in there about structure that I have always liked. Particularly considering it was designed and written during the "explore and figure out what works" phase of web apps, when the industry didn't really have a "best practices for the web" that included lots of experience with what does and doesn't work.
- organsnyder 12y ago
  Reading code is a good start, but I've found that it's not enough. When faced with an unfamiliar concept, I'm not sure whether it's an unfamiliar design pattern, a hacky kludge, or a special case to get around some quirk for a particular use-case. I've found that reading books—such as the Pragmatic Programmer series, Effective Java, and others—helps me to understand the rationale behind what otherwise seem like strange (sometimes even boneheaded) design decisions. Even oft-derided patterns (such as the "FooBuilderFactoryBuilder" so often seen in the Java world) make sense when understood in the context of the problems they're trying to address.
_asummers 12y ago
Check http://www.objc.io/ http://www.objc.io/ for good pointers for iOS and Objective-C related things. I haven't done iOS for a year/year and a half, and I still read their posts.

I keep hunting for such a post specifically for an iOS Developer.. to get beyond the initial frameworks and learn processes and flows

by sonny9 12y ago

I keep hunting for such a post specifically for an iOS Developer.. to get beyond the initial frameworks and learn processes and flows

sophacles 12y ago

Everyone hates to do it, but a lot of this comes from reading code. The more code you read, the more you'll learn to understand idioms, styles, what makes things good and bad for understandability. Then you'll be able to do it yourself. Another point to make: while every language has it's own idiom and style, there are also lots of "clean code" lessons that apply across languages, so guides about, e.g. python, translate somewhat into objective c.

ddebernardy 12y ago
It depends on what code you read, though. Think of PHP devs that learn from WordPress, for instance. It's not exactly setting a great example... (Though to their credit, WordPress improved somewhat in recent years.)
- sophacles 12y ago
  On the one hand, sure this makes some sense, on the other, it maybe means read more code... (i know this sounds sort of snarky). For example, if I wanted to write a novel, and had only read say, _A Tale of Two Cities_ I might thing I needed to include a bunch of broad social statements, and make my point through strongly contrasting scenes and juxtaposition. If I had only read Dickens, I might think writing a novel entailed finding only strange characters, pointing out social flaws. Keeping a thematic style that was about confusing light and dark with the normal associations. And so on. If I had only read Twilight, I wouldn't care much about dialog or character development. I wouldn't understand that there are things you can do thematically without exposition. If however read Dickens, and Hemingway, and Tolkein and Dan Brown, and Stephanie Meyer and ... I would have a different understanding of what could go into a novel. I would be able to see where story arc intersects with bigger themes and character development. I would see different ways of structuring sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and even whole books. None of this reading of course will make me a great author, writing does that, but a wide exposure will certainly help me understand where my writing is working vs where it isn't, it will help me understand how to structure things, help me shape my own work. I consider the same to be true of code. The folks that only read WordPress code have a very limited understanding of possibilities. The folks who have read that, and rails and django, and jekyll and flask and ... will see a wide range of styles, ideas about structure, and so on. An aside: Wordpress has some pretty ugly parts, but there are some ideas in there about structure that I have always liked. Particularly considering it was designed and written during the "explore and figure out what works" phase of web apps, when the industry didn't really have a "best practices for the web" that included lots of experience with what does and doesn't work.
organsnyder 12y ago
Reading code is a good start, but I've found that it's not enough. When faced with an unfamiliar concept, I'm not sure whether it's an unfamiliar design pattern, a hacky kludge, or a special case to get around some quirk for a particular use-case. I've found that reading books—such as the Pragmatic Programmer series, Effective Java, and others—helps me to understand the rationale behind what otherwise seem like strange (sometimes even boneheaded) design decisions. Even oft-derided patterns (such as the "FooBuilderFactoryBuilder" so often seen in the Java world) make sense when understood in the context of the problems they're trying to address.

_asummers 12y ago

Check http://www.objc.io/ http://www.objc.io/ for good pointers for iOS and Objective-C related things. I haven't done iOS for a year/year and a half, and I still read their posts.