New iOS programming books
If you’re an iOS developer with some experience and looking to boost your skills, you’re in luck: RayWenderlich.com, the go-to place for tutorials and books on iOS programming, has three new books for intermediate to advanced Swift programmers:
- Realm: Building Modern Swift Apps with Realm Database: The perfect introduction to Realm Database and Realm Platform. Learn how to set up your first Realm database, see how to persist and read data, find out how to perform migrations and more.
- Data Structures and Algorithms in Swift: Learn how to implement the most popular and useful data structures, and when and why you should use one particular data structure or algorithm over another.
- Design Patterns by Tutorials: Explore the usefulness of design patterns, moving from the basic building blocks of patterns into more advanced patterns and completes the lesson with less common but incredibly useful patterns.
Normally, these books sell for $54.99 each (and they’re worth it), but right now, they’re on sale as part of their Advanced Swift Spring Fling, where all 3 books are available as a bundle for $99.99, a 40% discount! This event lasts for just two weeks, so if you want these books at a cheaper price, get them now.
New Android programming books
RayWenderlich.com has long been known as the go-to place for tutorials and books on iOS programming, but over the past year, they’ve expanded to cover Android programming as well (in fact, I’m actually on their Android writing team — here’s the one article I’ve written so far). They’ve published Android programming articles, and now there are two new books:
- Android Apprentice: If you have prior programming experience — say, with Swift, Java, Python, or JavaScript — this book will help you get up to speed with Android development in short order. You’ll learn by building 4 complete Android apps from scratch:
- Timefighter: You’ll get started with Android development by creating a game with a simple goal: tap a button as fast as you can, within a set time limit.
- CheckList: Make a simple TODO app with multiple lists. Along the way, learn about layout managers, activities, saving data, and notifications.
- PlaceBook: Keep track of your favorite places with photos and maps. Along the way, learn about Google Play services, Room, Google Maps API, and working with photos.
- PodPlay: You’ll round out the book by building a podcast manager with a built-in media player. You’ll cover Android networking, job scheduling, media browser, notifications, and media playback.
- Kotlin Apprentice: This one’s written with a couple of audiences in mind:
- People with no prior programming experience, but who want to learn how to program in Kotlin, presumably in the hopes of taking up Android programming.
- People who have prior programming experience and are looking to get up-to-speed quickly with Kotlin.
Both books span hundreds of pages — Android Apprentice is 652 pages long, and Kotlin apprentice, which is still in the process of being written, is already 200 pages. Like other RayWenderlich.com books, they sell for $54.99 in PDF form and come with starter and finished code. This may seem expensive, but again, like other RayWenderlich.com books, they’re worth it. Having read a good number of their books, gone through the writing and editing process for an article on the site, and six hours’ worth of presentations and having tech edited one of their upcoming books, I can say that with confidence that they’re worth every penny.