Xcode 4 Unleashed (2nd Edition) Book Review

Being pretty new to Xcode I found this book to be just the right girth and depth of topics. It covered everything I was looking for, at the right level. The book is broken up into five parts First Steps, The Life Cycle of an iOS Application, Xcode for Mac OS X, Xcode Tasks, and four Appendixes. It covers a ton of topics which are pretty much named by the titles of the chapter, so I have listed them below. Part I. First Steps Chapter 1. Getting Xcode Chapter 2. Kicking the Tires Chapter 3. Simple Workflow and Passive Debugging Chapter 4. Active Debugging Chapter 5. Compilation Chapter 6. Adding a Library Target Chapter 7. Version Control Part II. The Life Cycle of an iOS Application Chapter 8. Starting an iOS Application Chapter 9. An iOS Application: Model Chapter 10. An iOS Controller Chapter 11. Building a New View Chapter 12. Adding Table Cells Chapter 13. Unit Testing Chapter 14. Measurement and Analysis Chapter 15. Storyboard Chapter 16. Provisioning Part III. Xcode for Mac OS X Chapter 17. Starting a Mac OS X Application Chapter 18. Wiring a Mac Application with Bindings Chapter 19. A Custom View for Mac OS X Chapter 20. Localization and Autolayout Chapter 21. Bundles and Packages Chapter 22. Frameworks Chapter 23. Property Lists Part IV. Xcode Tasks Chapter 24. Xcode 4 for Xcode 3 Veterans Chapter 25. Documentation in Xcode Chapter 26. The Xcode Build System Chapter 27. Instruments Chapter 28. Snippets Part V. Appendixes Appendix A. Objective-C Appendix B. Some Build Variables Appendix C. Project and Target Templates Appendix D. Resources One of the things I liked about the book is the author started with the use of iOS 4.3 and then moved to iOS 5. He uses iOS 4.3 throughout Part II until he gets to the storyboarding chapter. He then has you port all your work up to that point to work with a Storyboard project. He takes the opportunity to teach you about workspace so you can have more than one project up. I liked this approach because I am new to iOS programming and having the history built into the examples was good for me to see. More often than not, we aren't starting from scratch doing Greenfield Development, so this prepared me for what I can expect to run into. Another thing I liked was that the book included the part on Xcode for Mac OS X. Although I am primarily interested in iOS at this point, I found the introduction to Mac desktop development interesting. All the code is available for download and is organized by chapter. I found it to be very usable with a few exceptions. Like in chapter 10 where the author teaches you how to use the rename refactoring tool, he provides you with the code that has already been refactored. That may have been intentional, but it was confusing. The author's writing style easily kept my attention and made the book very easy to read. It was a good read cover to cover, but I will also be keeping it handy as a reference especially for Part IV. Xcode Tasks and Part V. Appendixes which cover the build system, Instruments, build variables, snippets, and the project templates. All in all I recommend this book to anyone looking to learn the Xcode 4 environment including Xcode 3 developers. The short chapter Xcode 4 for Xcode 3 Veterans will get you up and running quickly.

Xcode 4 Unleashed (2nd Edition)