Josh's Swift Journey

Back in Dubai and back to the code! I knew yesterday would be a right off. But just to clarify, I do NOT need to code every day. I reckon that 3-4 times a week for 30 minutes to 1 hour. That may not hit the self-imposed three hours a week target. Realistically, however, with school about to start again, I cannot guarantee three hours a week. I need to put together my long term plan for coding, which I will actually do below. I need more vision and purpose for it. Having faced several setbacks with it, I can't let that deter me. These may seem like random, unconnected thoughts but they do actually link together. So, before continuing with Treehouse, let's map out my long term plan! Step 1(June 2018-December 2018) - learn the basics syntax and principles of coding with Swift. Step 2 (January 2019 - June 2019) - learn more intermediate level coding and create several of my own projects. Step 3 (July 2019 to December 2019) - build on the intermediate concepts, learn some more...

Yes cracking on! Got a bit of time this morning before heading to my Uncle's and Auntie's. I want to cover Optionals then Control Flow. All very doable! Let's go! Start Time - 08:19 Optionals So I know about these but good to go over! They're used in situations where they may not be a value stored. Nil means the absence of a valid object. You can do these for any type at all. Optional types are returned where there may not have been a value e.g. when converting from string number to actual int number. The question mark syntax. Good way of understanding this is that the ? QUESTIONS whether something may not have a value. So the question bit is key there! You can only use nil with optionals. Optionals can only be var as the values are likely to change. If you create an optional without an initial value then it automatically sets this to nil. Forced unwrapping Comparing the optional against nil.... That's not forced unwrapping - that's just ch...

Cool! Now I have some closure (pun unintended!) on Nick's last, very complex, challenge, I am moving on with 'what's new in Swift 5'... Start Time - 13:15 This will be very recent information. ABI Stability ABI is how Swift interacts with the computer. What are the benefits here? Every Swift app (whatever the device is) it comes with a run time with whatever Swift version you have Now, with S5 and ABI stability, any device will already have Swift there so this will shrink app sizes. Frameworks in Swift also shrink in size, app load times reducing...cool! As you'll have different versions of Swift on different apps etc. it will now speed things up. Stability part - From Swift 1 to 2 there were MASSIVE changes. Each new Swift has resulted in small changes. This is good news as it means you don't have to RELEARN the language! Cool! This is also great as you can go ahead with using what you know with Swift 5, knowing it's not going to change so m...

So a poor effort recently! Life gets in the way...Shouldn't feel too bad though as I did a marathon session six days ago (2 hours worth) so another hour today should still help me to meet my three hours per week target. Just writing that makes me feel so proud - at one point I made a vow to try to get an hour a week. The fact that three hours doesn't seem like that much is something to be very pleased about. Anyway, the next part of Angela's course is all Intermediate Swift. Stuff that I will pay attention to but it should be familiar. It dovetails in with what I've been doing for the past few months, well it should at least. I doubt it'll be as technical as Bob's course! Anyway time to go for it! Start Time - 17:34 Classes Right so command line tool file created. I don't actually remember this AT ALL! So glad I am going over it! This sounds exciting - creating a new class and seeing the purpose for it. Cool.  It doesn't like calling...