How I learned Swift in about 3 weeks

I did not start my journey into Swift 3 weeks ago, but actually started back in June, the same month Swift was announced by Apple. I was very much focused on learning more Rails and had no real desire to learn it extensively, so I only dabbled in some reading. At that time I had already started learning Objective-C and messing around with iOS( which was just opening and closing Xcode). I started working through some of the Bloc iOS curriculum, but mainly read through curriculum and did not finish the alcohol calculator project.

Fast forward 2 months and I declared September as the month Swift for myself. I began reading the ever so dry Swift Language Guide and completed the Treehouse Swift course videos but wouldn't actually write Swift code for another month.

I have begun facilitating LearnWithMe sessions with CodeNewbies where the focus is choosing a subject in programming that you are interested in learning with others. I was approached, Swift came to mind right away, since it has been a milestone I continue to push down the list.

I started my first session with the CodeNewbies and ran through the Swift Tutorial: Quick Start, which I highly recommend due to it's great job in explanation of basic Swift programming and Xcode Playgrounds.  Just last week I started a tutorial I had on my list for months, which I highly recommend, Bloc's Swiftris tutorial. This tutorial was the perfect next step for myself to really understand how Swift works with the iOS framework. I also got actual hands on in Xcode and actually make an app work. I was blown away when I ran the build and heard the Tetris music running in the background, it was a great feeling.

Today was my 3rd Swift session and I ran through another basic tutorial called, Learn Swift. The nice part about this tutorial is the pre-packaged playgrounds you can download and play with.

What's Next?
My immediate goal is to start and complete another tutorial in iOS/Swift, I do not have plans of attempting non iOS tutorials at this point, since I already have a basic understanding of Swift; enough to at least debug errors. I have downloaded the FlappyBird Swift code which I will be reading through and plan on completing the Treehouse Swift Weather app.

If you are interest in joining me in learning Swift, keep an eye on the CodeNewbie forum for the next event.

My goal is to become proficient in mobile development and have the ability to transfer my web development ideas to the iOS platform. Thanks for joining on that journey.

My thoughts after Completing my first Ember tutorial

I spent some time with this Vic Ramon's tutorial and learning how to create a basic app with Ember. For those who don't know, Ember is a Front End Javascript framework which is built similar to how Rails is built.

Comparing it to Rails. 

Ember is labeled as an MVC framework, where there is a Model View and Controller to work through each layer while completing the app. It is very possible, just as in Rails, to complete the entire app in one page and 100's of lines of codes, but each file (Model, View, and Controller) holds each part of the functionality. Just like Rails, the Model holds the info, the Controller makes the Model move, and the View is where you see it. There is also a Router just like Rails, and having familiarity to all this made since.

Its hard to compare the two exactly or whether you should learn one over the other, since are both to different things. I liked that the tutorial I completed is used Ember as the Front End of a Rails app. This basically removes the need to put all Front End functionality into the asset pipeline.

I found it very cool how I quickly understood the concept of Ember while going through the tutorial. I always avoided learning a Javascript framework due to my extreme focus on Ruby/Rails and lack Javascript knowledge, but similar to Rails you do not need to know a ton of Javascript to learn Ember, Angular, or any other framework for that matter. The tutorial also gives you some links as you read through and complete the process.

I can tell you that the going through this tutorial was easier than going through any other Rails tutorial, but that is because I had the Rails understanding. Knowing programming in general, plus have a little bit of experience made this extremely easy to get through once I got going.

My impressions

Im very impressed with the Ember community, similar to how the Ruby community impressed me with their openness to newbs. The community is also very small and even the core members seem accessible for questions. I am looking forward to checking out another tutorial, most likely a pure Ember app without Rails, like this one.

What I did like about the Vic tutorial is the ability to switch from Coffescript and Javascript. Rob is probably not going to like this recommendation, but if you are know Rails already and now learning JS, learn Coffeescript. The syntax of Ember reminds of Coffeescript and it makes sense why Vic, recommends it over vanilla JS, however I do know there is a large job market for people who know pure JS, so to each their own. I have never taken a Javascript based course to learn the basic syntax and barely 20% of the way through the Codecademy (I need to finish that), but I am surprised how much of the syntax I understand.

During the tutorial I finally learned how to properly debug JS in the Chrome console (here is a good tutorial on it). I had a couple typos preventing me from moving on with the tutorial, but in total it took me about 6 hours my second time. The first time I went through the Ember tutorial I had a lot of issues with Coffeescript syntax errors and switched over to pure JS, but by then I had a better understanding Ember and was able to fly through it. I plan to finish the Coffeescript version tomorrow and recommend if you do try this tutorial to try both, its good exposure.

If you know Rails and looking to get into a FrontEnd framework, then definitely try out this tutorial.

Discovered and Starting the Odin Project

I took a bit of a break over the weekend with learning. I spent time with my family and got a new couch. It was nice to not have the pressure of a personal deadline.

Well that did not last long, since I have now discovered the Odin Project. This project is actually something I found a month ago and ignored. I followed the Google plus group but did not really follow, but that changed on Sunday night when I was cruising the internet and saw a notification for a Hangout on Air Sunday night.

Apparently this group is doing what I would eventually like to get to with the Ruby Newbies group. The group has a curriculum and each week they meet to go over the assignment. They also have opportunity for pairing through out the week.

Sunday marked week 1 of the Rails project group, but the also a Wed Dev 101 group going on at he same time. Meeting times are on Sunday and Wednesday Evening.

If you have any interest in learning check out the Odin curriculum. They have done a good job laying out what you need to learn and its free.

I have begun this week's assignment, which is the blog app by Jumpstart Labs. I also started Dash and HTML and CSS Codecademy, per the the Web Dev 101 coursework. I have a strong need to learn Front-End Design and hopefully Odin will get it done with me.