Core Data by Tutorials: IOS 9 and Swift

by Aaron Douglas, Saul Mora, Matthew Morey

There is an updated version of this book, updated for Xcode 7.3 and Swift 2.2. Search for "Core Data by Tutorials Second Edition Updated for Swift 2.2" Learn Core Data with Swift! Take control of your data in iOS apps using Core Data, through a series of high quality hands-on tutorials. Start with with the basics like setting up your own Core Data Stack all the way to advanced topics like syncing with iCloud, migration, performance, multithreading, and more! By the end of this book, you'll have hands-on experience with Core Data and will be ready to use it in your own apps. Who This Book Is This book is for intermediate iOS developers who already know the basics of iOS and Swift development but want to learn how to use Core Data to save data in their apps. Topics Covered in Core Data by The iOS Tutorial Team takes pride in making sure each tutorial we write holds to the highest standards of quality. We want our tutorials to be well written, easy to follow, and fun. And we don't want to just skim the surface of a subject - we want to really dig into it, so you can truly understand how it works and apply the knowledge directly in your own apps.

Genres: Reference, Programming

278 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2014

Reviews

[grundoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall one of the (if not the) best and reasonably thorough introductions to Core Data – if you like the tutorials on the Ray Wenderlich website, you'll really like the book-length versions. Their style does however occasionally frustrate – in its use of code clarity for teaching mode, completely ignoring best practices, Swift-y patterns in a book with Swift 4 right there in the title, and refactoring as one builds; in failing to completely follow through on things such as MOC handling when batch operating directly on persistent stores (much less MOC synchronization in general), how to actually get that exported file from the sandbox to a useful place (since that is the whole point of doing so, no?), or when taking the time to mention NSFetchedResultsController can also drive collection views "with some changes" without also taking time to provide a simple snippet on the topic (this is "by Tutorials" after all). And then there are all the exceptionally oddly numbered lists that make one wonder if this edition was slapped together without so much as a single actual proofread.

[An Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantastic book. One thing that Tutorials really hits on the head is its simplicity and beginner-oriented style.

I made the mistake as a fairly novice programmer in picking up Core Data by objc.io to learn Core Data before picking up the one by Tutorials.

Let me say that objc.io's book is AMAZING and incredibly chock-full of good information and best practices but I should have gone nowhere near that book at the stage I was at. They utilize advanced Swift concepts like protocol extensions and generic classes everywhere and reading it at the time seemed completely alien to me. My one nit-pick is that the apps you work on throughout the book comes completely built and you examine it piece by piece as opposed to building it slowly.

On the other hand, this book by Tutorials so simple it's impossible not to understand the concepts being explained. Every concept is backed by an app that you work with from start to finish. They cover pretty much every important part of Core Data from setting up the stack, NSFetchedResultsController, iCloud, Unit Tests, and even utilizing multiple Managed Object Contexts—all essential to developers working with Core Data.

What this book by Tutorials lacks and objc.io's book has in spades are things like optimization and best practices. objc.io's book really gets into the nitty-gritty of how Core Data works at a low level and every little gotcha and trick that you should be aware of. It goes into very advanced things like multithreading and multicontext setups and the code examples in the book are elegant and clean.

My recommendation is to finish the book if you've never done Core Data before + you are fairly new to Swift/Programming. The book will hold your hand through every page so you never feel lost.

If programming is something you are fairly experienced with and it's only Core Data that baffles you, consider reading objc.io's book as it will show you everything you need to know in a very condensed manner.