Becoming Productive in Xcode
I've been dabbling in Objective-C and Cocoa for years. Now, thanks in large part to the iPhone, I'm spending almost all my development time coding Objective-C. And I'm having a blast!
That brings us to a question I'm often asked: What's your favorite editor? My answer is always: It depends. (At this point, I start losing friends.) I've been accused of not having any loyalty when it comes to editors, and it's absolutely true. I use vi every day for my work at the command line. I write books in Emacs. I code Ruby and Rails in TextMate. And when I'm programming in Objective-C, it's Xcode all the way. Sure, when I'm in Xcode I miss favorite things in the other editors, but Xcode has features that make iPhone development a lot more convenient. Simply put: It's the best tool for the job.
Picking up a new editor can be a bit jarring at first. Xcode is certainly no exception. It's a lot more than an editor - it's an IDE. And in general I cower away from those big letters. But I find that Xcode has a nice balance. You're in charge when it comes to files and source code, and Xcode takes over when you need it to build and package your application for the Mac or iPhone. Behind the facade, you can still do everything from the command line if you want. I like that kind of transparency.
But it took me a while before I really felt productive in Xcode. I could get things done, but not very efficiently. I missed all the shortcuts and power moves I'd learned in my other editors. So I invested the time learning the tricks to Xcode and distilled everything I learned down into a set of Becoming Productive in Xcode screencasts. Check out the free sampler movie for a peek at what's inside. There's a ton of research behind these screencasts. I knew a fair amount going into the project, but ended up learning a bunch of new things, too. I'm confident you'll get your $10 worth. :-)
It's my hope that these screencasts will quickly make you a more productive (and even happier!) Xcoder, whether you're a new iPhone developer or you just want to become more familiar with the shortcuts. I'm really pleased with the feedback so far. Please keep it coming! Thanks to your continued support, I hope to do more screencasting soon...