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A Summary of Five Months Switching to iOS Development转行 iOS 五个月总结

· Personal essays

Translated from Chinese — .

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Rambling

Around August 5th I suddenly made the decision to come work in Beijing. When I was getting the lay of the land from a classmate in Beijing, his company happened to be short-staffed. I came for an interview on the 7th, and reported for work first thing in the morning on the 13th. I do have a bit of a fate with iOS development: from mid-March to early May I did less than 2 months of iOS development at a small company in Jinan (the interview was originally for Android, but after I came on board iOS was more urgently needed; I figured since I’d just switched careers either was fine, so I started doing iOS. Later, my classmate’s company in Beijing also wanted me to do Android initially — I had a soft spot for Android back then with the idea of being able to study the Android source code someday — but my classmate’s company was also short on iOS, so it was settled this way).

(Thinking about it now, switching to iOS development is also related to my being a bit lost. Mobile development, penetration testing, machine learning — I had invested quite a lot of time into all three directions and couldn’t make up my mind, so I just went with whichever job I could land. (Perhaps the people interviewing me could tell which direction suited me, ha. Hmm, thinking about it now, I really was being irresponsible about my own future. But later when I think about it again, I can only say I was lucky, or that this direction really does suit me.))

  • Mid-March to early May, nearly two months. (In between, I spent two months dreaming about an O2O startup; when I woke from the dream it was already August.)
  • August 13th to today (November 18th), a little over 3 months.

Five months in total. I feel like I’ve become a beginner at iOS development. Let me summarize, and at the end also make some plans.

Preface

I developed client software in C++ on Windows for 5 years. I like reading books and trusting them in my spare time, and in the 5th year I thought about crossing over to something new. I came across a book called “MacTalk: Programming Life”… and from then on I stepped through Apple’s door.

This article mainly summarizes how, over these 5 months, I went from Windows C++ development to iOS development.

Preparation

Information

  • “MacTalk: Programming Life” gave me my first real understanding of Apple (before that I only knew Jobs). (I bought this book in 2014.)

Hardware

  • MacBook Pro 15-inch, not the top spec — I bought the Hong Kong version from a small low-profile Apple shop. (My company now uses a 13-inch + external monitor, and I feel the 13-inch is pretty good too.) (Bought in late 2014.)
  • iPhone 4S, a used one I bought for 700 yuan on Xianyu. (I’d never used an Apple product before, and bought it to familiarize myself with operating the iOS system.) (Bought after I started doing iOS development in March 2015.)
  • A mouse. In the early days you still need a mouse, otherwise it’s hard to get used to. As I gradually got used to the trackpad, I rarely used the mouse.

Software

Learning

Phase One: Fundamentals

This phase took about a week. Any problem I ran into could be quickly found via Baidu.

1. “Start Developing iOS Apps Today”

The English is Start Developing iOS Apps Today.

First I read this official tutorial — a hands-on, step-by-step tutorial. I followed along as I read, and after finishing my confidence soared.

2. “Programming in Objective-C”

I read the fourth edition, and over about two days I browsed it from start to finish. For the classes and Foundation parts I wrote some example programs along with it to get familiar with the syntax.

3. “iOS Development Guide: From Zero to App Store”

I read the second edition. Although the steps in the book are very detailed, I quickly browsed it from start to finish. For the first few chapters I picked some examples and completed them step by step. Once I was familiar with the development routine, I followed along to build out the small projects in the later chapters. It took roughly 3 or 4 days. After that, it was developing and reading the book at the same time.

4. Building UI with iOS Code

This was mainly from reading this article: http://www.cocoachina.com/bbs/read.php?tid=131516

Phase Two: Really Starting Development

This phase, all told, was the longest, roughly more than 4 months.

5. Mastering Controls

  • UITableView
  • UIScrollView

6. CocoaPods

  • Basic usage

7. Getting Familiar with a Few Common Libraries

These libraries are basically must-haves for development.

  • AFNetworking, a famous networking library
  • Masonry, convenient hand-written Auto Layout
  • MBProgressHUD, waiting progress
  • MJRefresh, pull-to-refresh
  • JSONKit, JSON parsing
  • SDWebImage, asynchronous image loading

8. A Few Concepts

  • GCD
  • KVC/KVO
  • MVC
  • NSCoping
  • NSCoding
  • Categories of developer accounts
  • Development certificates, distribution certificates, push certificates
  • Provisioning profiles

9. Xcode Plugins

First install the plugin manager http://alcatraz.io/

  • FuzzyAutocomplete, fuzzy matching for code autocomplete
  • XToDo, find TODO markers in code
  • KSImageNamed, preview images while writing [UIImage imageNamed:] in code
  • XVim, VIM mode
  • VVDocumenter-Xcode, press /// to generate comments
  • XBookmark, bookmark feature (I’m used to the bookmark feature, a habit from when I used Visual Studio)
  • ColorSenseRainbow, conveniently preview colors in code

10. A Few Books

  • “Pro iOS Development” — supplements concepts, a reference book.
  • “Advanced iOS Development” — not many pages, but very practical.
  • “Effective Objective-C 2.0” — a little classic

11. Frequently Used Websites

  • Code4App
  • CocoaChina
  • GitHub

Phase Three: Going Deeper

Given an app’s requirements, you can confidently say there’s no problem. You should further deepen and strengthen your knowledge.

12. Crash Capture and Analysis

13. Continuous Integration

  • fastlane is a collection of tools for all kinds of iOS development workflows, even automatic app screenshots.
  • fir.im nicely solves in-house app distribution. When the boss wants to see the latest app in development, just give him a link and you’re done.
  • Jenkins, a powerful continuous integration system, works with fastlane and fir.im to conveniently automate the entire packaging and upload process.

14. CocoaPods

  • How to create your own library

15. Some Deeper Concepts

  • Method Swizzling: I used to do Windows Hook, and Objective-C has it too — concepts are always similar.
  • Message forwarding mechanism
  • Toll-Free Bridging
  • Associated objects
  • Bitcode
  • Objective C++

16. Source Code Study

  • Masonry
  • UITableViewCell-Auto…
  • MBProgressHUD
  • MJRefresh
  • When you see a nice effect, if there’s source code, take a look

17. Unit Testing

  • Specta/Expecta
  • Kiwi

18. MVVM

  • ReactiveCocoa

19. A Few Books

  • “The Tao of Objective-C Programming” — mainly to learn the ideas. Haven’t finished it yet.
  • “Talking About Mobile App Testing: A Testing Guide for Android and iOS Apps” — reflecting on development from a testing perspective.
  • “Pro Multithreading and Memory Management for iOS and OS X with ARC”

20. Articles

Phase Four

This phase is my plan. Over the past 5 years I’ve always worked on security products, and I’ve always had a soft spot for security. Now that I’m doing iOS development, it definitely can’t be left out. The books are already bought and waiting for me to read.

21. Keep Going Deeper

  • All kinds of special effects
  • All kinds of animations
  • All kinds of UIs

22. Security

  • “iOS App Reverse Engineering”
  • “Hacking and Securing iOS Applications”
  • “Mac OS X and iOS Internals”

Summary

The above is my iOS learning experience over these few months. There may be omissions. I’m sharing it with everyone, hoping it can help other peers switching from C++ to iOS.

If there’s anything incorrect, please point it out.

文章目录

啰嗦

8月5号左右突然做出了来北京工作的决定，给北京同学了解情况时正好同学公司缺人，7号来面试了下，13号一早就来报到了。自己与iOS开发还是有些缘分，3月中旬到5月初在济南一家小公司做了不到2个月的iOS开发（当初面试是做Android，但近来后iOS更急需，我想我这刚转行都可以啦，就开始做了iOS；后来北京同学这开始也想做Android（抱着以后能学习学习Android源码的想法那时对Android情有独钟），不过同学这也是缺少iOS，于是就这样定了吧）。

（现在想来，转为开发iOS，也与我有些迷茫有关系。移动开发、渗透测试、机器学习，三个自己都投入过不少时间的方向，拿不定主意，就看找到哪个工作了。（或许面试我的人能看出我是否适合那个方向哈，不错现在想想真是对自己的未来不负责任，后来再想，只能说自己运气好或者这个方向真的适合我））。

  • 3月中旬到5月初，接近两个月时间。 （中间两个月做梦O2O创业去了，梦醒后就8月份了）
  • 8月13号到今天（11月18日），3个月多点。

总共5个月了，感觉自己iOS开发算是入门了，总结总结，最后也计划计划。

前言

在 Windows 平台用 C++ 开发了 5 年客户端，平时喜欢看书且信书，第5年了就想着跨界一下，看到一本《MacTalk人生元编程》……从此迈入了 Apple 的大门。

此文主要总结下，我这5个月如何从 Windows C++ 开发转到 iOS 开发。

准备

信息

  • 《MacTalk人生元编程》，让我对 Apple 有了第一次认识（以前只知道乔布斯）。（这本书我是2014年买的）

硬件

  • MacBook Pro 15寸 非顶配，我是从小闷的水果店买的港版。（现在公司用的13寸+外接显示器，感觉13寸也不错。）（2014年底购买）
  • iPhone 4S，从闲鱼上700块钱买了的二手的。（从来没有用过Apple的产品，为了让自己熟悉iOS系统的操作）（2015年3月份开始做iOS开发后买的）
  • 鼠标。前期还是配个鼠标，否则不习惯。慢慢习惯了触摸板就很少用鼠标了。

软件

学习

第一阶段：基础

这个阶段大概用了一个星期，遇到的问题百度都能很快找出来。

1. 《马上着手开发 iOS 应用程序》

英文是 Start Developing iOS Apps Today。

首先看了这份官方提供的教程，手把手教程。边看边做，完成后信心大增。

2. 《Objective-C 程序设计》

我看的第四版，大概两天的时间，从头到尾浏览了一遍。类和Foundation部分照着写了一些例子程序熟悉语法。

3. 《iOS开发指南：从零基础到AppStore上架》

看的第二版。书中虽然步骤很详细，从头到尾看快速浏览了一遍，前几章的挑了一些例子，一步一步完成了，熟悉了开发套路后，后面章节的小项目，跟着做出来。大概花费了3、4天时间。之后就是边开发边看书了。

4. iOS代码写界面

主要是看的这篇文章，http://www.cocoachina.com/bbs/read.php?tid=131516

第二阶段：真正开始开发

这个阶段前后加起来算是最长时间，大概4个多月吧。

5. 熟练控件

  • UITableView
  • UIScrollView

6. CocoaPods

  • 基本使用

7. 熟悉常用的几个库

这些库基本上都是开发必用的了。

  • AFNetworking 很出名的网络库
  • Masonry 方便的手写自动布局
  • MBProgressHUD 等待进度
  • MJRefresh 下拉刷新
  • JSONKit JSON解析
  • SDWebImage 异步加载图片

8. 几个概念

  • GCD
  • KVC/KVO
  • MVC
  • NSCoping
  • NSCoding
  • 开发者账号的类别
  • 开发证书、生产证书、推送证书
  • 描述文件

9. Xcode插件

先安装插件管理器 http://alcatraz.io/

  • FuzzyAutocomplete 代码自动完成的模糊匹配
  • XToDo 查找代码中的TODO标记
  • KSImageNamed 代码中写[UIImage imageNamed:]时可预览图片
  • XVim VIM模式
  • VVDocumenter-Xcode 按///产生注释
  • XBookmark 书签功能（我习惯用书签功能，以前用VisualStudio时的习惯）
  • ColorSenseRainbow 代码中方便预览颜色

10. 几本书

  • 《精通iOS开发》 补充概念，工具书。
  • 《iOS开发进阶》 页数不多，但很实用。
  • 《Effective Objective-C 2.0》 小经典

11. 常用网站

  • Code4App
  • CocoaChina
  • GitHub

第三阶段：深入

给一个App的需求，自己能自信的说没问题了。应该进一步深入的强化下自己的知识了。

12. 崩溃获取及分析

13. 持续集成

  • fastlane 是一个工具集合，各种iOS开发的流程，甚至App自动截图。
  • fir.im 很好的解决了App内测分发。老板想看看最新开发中的App，给他一个链接就OK了。
  • Jenkins 强大的持续集成系统，配合 fastlane 和 fir.im 方便的自动化整个打包、上传过程。

14. CocoaPods

  • 如何自己创建库

15. 一些更深一步的概念

  • Method Swizzing ：以前做Windows Hook，Objective-C也有啊，概念总是相似的。
  • 消息转发机制
  • Toll-Free Bridging
  • 关联对象
  • Bitcode
  • Objective C++

16. 源码学习

  • Masonry
  • UITableViewCell-Auto…
  • MBProgressHUD
  • MJRefresh
  • 看到一些不错的效果，有源码就看一看

17. 单元测试

  • Specta/Expecta
  • Kiwi

18. MVVM

  • ReactiveCocoa

19. 几本书

  • 《Objective-C编程之道》主要是学习思想。还没看完。
  • 《大话移动APP测试，Android与iOS应用测试指南》从测试的角度反思下开发。
  • 《Objective-C 高级编程：iOS与OS X多线程和内存管理》

20. 文章

第四阶段

这一阶段是我的计划。过去5年自己一直做安全产品，对安全总是情有独钟，现在做iOS开发了，肯定不能少。书已经买好等着我看啦。

21. 继续深入

  • 各种特效
  • 各种动画
  • 各种界面

22. 安全

  • 《iOS应用逆向工程》
  • 《iOS应用安全攻防实战》
  • 《深入解析Mac OS X & iOS操作系统》

总结

以上是我这几个月的iOS学习经历，可能有遗漏，分享给大家，希望能帮助到其他C++转iOS的同行们。

如有不正确的地方，请指正。