Tanmay Bakshi - Hello Swift!: iOS app programming for kids and other beginners

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Acquisitions editor: Mike StephensDevelopment editor: Helen StergiusTechnical development editor: Francesco BianchiReview editor: Aleks DragosavljeviProduction editor: Anthony CalcaraCopyeditor: Kathy SimpsonProofreader: Michelle MelaniTechnical proofreader: Doug WarrenTypesetter: Marija TudorCover designer: Leslie Haimes

ISBN: 9781617292620

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Writing a book is a journey that, unless you have passion and love for, Id say is difficult and unreasonable. My passion and drive were to create a book for those who dont know anything, or little, about computers and programming so that they can understand programming, create meaningful apps, and take off to higher levels. I want the book to be a kick-starter for those who want to start writing apps but face roadblocks when they pick up a book or another resource to start learning. Moreover, the useful knowledge about programming with Swift is scattered in pieces across the internet, and I wanted it to be accessible as a unified package, in sequence. This was my motive to write the book, and to the best of my abilities, Ill support it through the liveBook Discussion Forum by answering your questions and solving the problems that youll encounter in your journey of learning.

Objective-C was the first language that took me ahead a great deal. I started learning it at the age of 8, and I had my first app, tTables (times-tables practice app), accepted in the App Store when I was 9. The app helped me in my studies, so I wanted to share it. I also have a goal of reaching out to and helping at least 100,000 beginners to help them learn how to code, so I started writing a book on Objective-C as one way to achieve this goal. The moment that Apple released Swift, a new programming language that lets people write apps for its devices, I immediately got to it. I found that Swift was easier and faster to learn than Objective-C, and it had Apples full support, so it was a much better choice for the new learner. Soon, Apple open sourced Swift, making it even more popular. Apple provided library support for graphics, animations, games, and even CoreML to support developing artificial-intelligence-based apps, too. Today, Swift is one of the top choices for learners and professionals alike. After you learn it, youre all set to create apps for devices such as the iPhone, iPad, macOS, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. Because Swift is open source, you can create apps for Linux, Windows, or Android as well.

Learning Swift to create apps for your ideas is easy. You can do it!

I sincerely thank the entire team at Manning Publications who were involved in the creation of this book, including (but surely not limited to) Michael Stephens, Helen Stergius, Doug Warren, Francesco Bianchi, and Christopher Kaufmann. Special thanks to Michael for giving me a great start and to Helen for a great relationship as my development editor; I really learned a lot from you. More special thanks to all the reviewers who gave their valuable time, intellect, and feedback to remove errors from the manuscript and for their suggestions for improvement.

I also convey my thanks to family members, friends, and well-wishers who supported me to create this book so that it can reach those who need it to learn coding and creating apps.

I dedicate this book to the readers who use this book to learn the basics of programming and iOS app development.

Finally, I would like to thank my reviewers, whose feedback and help improving this book were deeply appreciated, including Ahmed Chicktay, Becky Huett, Christopher and Sydney Haupt, David Barkol, Diego Acua Rozas, Eric Giannini, Essa Hashmi, Georgerobert Freeman, Harald Kisch, Itai Platnik, Jason Pike, Matt Deimel, Matt Lemke, Maxim Kisch, Michael Anderson, Mike Jensen, Patrick Tien Lu, Robert Walsh, Rodney J. Woodruff, Roy Legaard Jr., Tahir Akhtar, Terry Rickman, and Tidjani Belmansour.

I always wanted to reach out to 100,000 beginners so that they can learn programming and take their first few steps into the world of coding computers so that they can give shape to their ideas. I found that whereas more and more people want to learn programming, there arent enough resources available for them to fulfil their needs, and providing them with the right kind of resource, a stepping stone, was my intention in creating this book.

This book is for beginners of any age who want to start learning programming to create apps and to give shape to their own ideas. You may want to create apps for your children, grandchildren, yourself, your parents, or for the App Store. You should be able to create something yourself to make the life of someone around you easier, better, and more productive.

Thank you for being with me on this journey of learning Swift and iOS app programming! Youll complete this journey through 14 milestones (chapters). I start by making you ready for this journey, helping you set up your hardware, software, and developer account. You find out how to create an app for your Apple Watch and even how to take off from there in terms of resources, references, learning by participating in online forums, and being future-ready. Before you proceed on this journey, however, Id like to let you know where youre heading.

Youll be learning the Swift programming language and using it to create apps. You may be hoping to be able to design and code an amazing game like Temple Run when youre done with this book. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but youll have more to learn when you finish. In this book, you learn fundamental Swift and iOS concepts and some simple graphics manipulationa necessary first step, but a first step. So much information about programming and games is available that its probably hard to figure out where to start. So Ive created a list of things you can learn after this book so that youll have all the skills you need to write high-quality games that you could add to the App Store.