I’ve spent about six months in a technical rut. Not really learning anything new iOS/tvOS/Swift-wise. I got a little complacent with the skills that I had.
Recently, I’ve started breaking out of that rut. At least I hope.
Over the past week and a half, I’ve made my way through Core Data by Tutorials from the Ray Wenderlich team. The Core Data book is currently on sale (50% off). It’s a really good book.
I’ve used Core Data quite a bit over the years, but I haven’t used it heavily since 2016. Since 2016, most of my professional work has been using Realm which is an alternative to Core Data.
Core Data by Tutorials was a really nice refresher on Core Data. I also learned a few new tidbits here. Most interesting chapters to me were “Unit Testing” & “Core Data & CloudKit”.
The unit testing chapter gave me some great ideas on how to improve my unit testing in various areas. I’ve been trying to get better with unit testing in both professional and personal projects. This chapter sparked some interest in that area that I’ve been able to progress with, so far.
The Core Data and CloudKit chapter was entirely new to me. I’ve had multiple false starts on getting cloud syncing working in projects. These attempts include a failed blog series called Data Sync Series. I had also made multiple attempts to get syncing into my retired app MyCntdwn.
This book has got me thinking about data syncing again. I’ve even thought about doing a few things. First, adding sync to MyCntdwn (finally) and shipping it again. Second, revamping my data sync series and actually finishing it. I’m not sure if any of this will happen. But this book has got me started down that path mentally. Who knows, maybe it will be a nice Summer project.
I’ve got my next book lined up. It’s Combine: Asynchronous Programming with Swift also from the Ray Wenderlich team. I’ve been dabbling in Combine here and there since it was announced by Apple at least year’s WWDC. It’s not something I can really use professionally, yet. Combine requires iOS 13+ to work and we support iOS 11+ at work. But Combine is something that I can use in personal projects.