Swift Essentials - Learn Swift 2.1 Step by Step (Udemy.com)

Easy to understand all concepts. Great tool if you need something more interactive to learn from rather than a book. Only thing that pissed me off is the lack of effort put into double-checking the spelling mistakes he would make (ESPECIALLY DURING CHALLENGES). It only takes 5-10 seconds to proof-read your stuff and make sure that everything is correct. This really took me out of my learning experience and oftentimes I was more fed up with how he was teaching than actually being able to focus and learn the material(s) at hand. Was going to give this 1 star because of that reason alone, but that would be harsh and unfair. Hopefully he'll be able to learn from this, otherwise next time I purchase his course he won't be receiving such a general feedback.

Nick is doing a great job of walking us through the Swift language and how it can be used. The only thing I'd like to see is for the examples/solutions to be more geared toward something we'd see in actual practice rather than something made up on the fly that is unlikely to represent how we'd actually use the code. So, I got to the end and was disappointed with how basic the class was. I had to reconsider the name and description of this course and I came to the conclusion that Nick delivered what he proffered: these were, in fact, the essentials for a beginner, though you won't be ready to write an app that's commercially viable when done. My expectations were simply too high for the class. I think it's a good start. Now, I'm on to the next class to fill in some more.

It is a very good course covering Swift. This should be taken before any ios iphone programming courses. It give you the foundation you need to move on to more complex tasks. I recommend it highly. My only negative, I can't figure out if Nick, the instructor, is just a poor speller, poor typist, or dyslexic to some degree. He seems incapable of typing even one sentence without making some mistake, and sometimes not even recognizing it. I found that to be a slightly annoying distraction.

tl;dr: Nick does an excellent job in this course taking you through the fundamentals of Swift. From the basic syntax of the language to being able to decipher extensive classes and protocols. If you’ve ever found yourself staring blankly at the Swift documentation - or answers on StackOverflow that look something like: func Foo(param1 param1: String?, _ param2: Int) -> String {var param1: String = param1!; if param1.isEmpty{return ""}else{for _ in 1...param2 {param1 += param1}};return param1}; Foo(param1: String?, param2: Int) then this is the course for you!! This Swift Essentials course has been a HUGE eye-opener for me!! It has really REALLY helped me get a gasp on all of the syntax and lingo that always hung me up in other courses. NOW I can finally READ and understand the examples that I see on StackOverflow or in the Swift docs. I’ve always thought that the "build xx apps" type of courses would hold my interest more, BUT, I kept getting side-tracked or derailed by not fully understanding the code that I was seeing. I constantly found myself asking: "well.. how did you know to use that function? how did you know what to put in there? what the heck is that “_” or “->” or “:” or “?” doing in there? why doesn't the other variable name show up?" etc etc So it became a practice of just copying what I would see on the screen :/ and I would eventually hit walls and just stop. I mean - any monkey can drag a label or button object onto the Storyboard - but this Swift Essentials course will help really understand what all of the code behind the scenes is then doing. There's definitely something to be said for being able to build a simple app - and then running it - and seeing it work on your iPhone. I mean - it has that "cool" factor! But that only got me so far before I started needing to know "why" things worked - or how - or how I could change them to what I needed. I thought a class like this would be boring.. and yeah... there was some tough sledding in the very beginning getting through variables, loops and other programming fundamentals that I was already familiar with, BUT Nick really does a great job on keeping the content and videos at just the right length - and then the Challenges after each section kept me engaged. Those were great at reinforcing not only what I had just learned - but incorporating content from earlier sections! So yeah - even in the early sections where I thought I knew all of the content, I still ended up picking up some key new things specific to Swift. When you're new to iOS development, it can be hard enough wrapping your head around the Swift - LET ALONE getting used to using XCode!! The different panels - what's where - view controllers - auto layout (which, btw, seems very far from really being 'auto" lol) etc! This course only uses Swift Playgrounds - and only having to worry about Playgrounds and the simple console output allows you to focus on the code itself. Having completed this course, I’ve now gone back to Nick’s iOS 9 Adventure course, and for me, it’s a night and day difference. Sure I’m not lighting the world on fire yet - but - I now know how to read what the different classes, protocols, and functions are looking for, requiring, and performing. I can now make sense of the Swift documentation - and the answers that I find in StackOverflow! So yeah - this Swift Essentials course has been a Godsend lol 5-Star!! I HIGHLY recommend this course for anyone getting started with Swift!

Nick does a great job of covering the essentials of Swift and not only just doing the "follow my keystrokes" thing but also explaining concepts and processes. This is a great choice for developing your Swift skills!

I have been in IT for over 15 years but decided that I wanted a career change and become an iOS developer. Despite having the knowledge to solve almost any arising issue with a computer, when I came to developing, I didn't have the first idea where to start. I explored many courses but because they tried to teach Swift and Xcode at the same time, it got very confusing and I found that I wasn't taking in as much as I would have liked to. Then I made a decision that if I knew Swift, the rest should fall into place or can be learnt afterwards. After all I thought learning Swift would be the hardest part in my transition to coding. That was when I found this course. Nick does an amazing job of going through all the core concepts of Swift and teaches them in a great way which makes you remember them and put them into practice. Now that I have completed the course and feel that I have an amazing overview of the Swift language, I will go onto his App Creation course and then I should be well on my way to becoming a professional iOS developer. Thanks Nick, fantastic course and a great idea to separate the Swift coding from the Xcode stuff.

I have now completed the course. It took me from the very beginning to the point where I could make sense of the terse Apple documentation. I recommend Nick's course: It covers a wide spectrum at a reasonable depth. In this course, Nick demonstrates the practical side of writing short Swift programs using Apple's Playground. It fulfills its advertised promise of teaching Swift to folk with very little prior programming knowledge. Now lets be perfectly frank and honest: This course will get you to the point of being able to fully understand Apple's documentation, and you will be able to write some useful programs in Swift, but it is only an excellent first step towards Swift mastery. Nick has produced a cost effective course that uses your time wisely, but you will need to serve your coding apprenticeship by grinding out goal-directed code, understanding the architecture of design patterns, and delving into Cocoa. None of this is criticism. The course delivers what it said it would. Nick has his unique mannerisms but they are not annoying. I know that Nick has updated his course, and I hope that he has taken this opportunity to think before he lectures and edit our the real-time typing corrections. But I am being unduly critical given the high quality and ridiculously low price I paid for the course. Thank you Nick for a well-thought-out course, and for your whimsical CLDS humor!

I've taken other courses taught by other teachers but they all leave out small details because they seem to assume that you already know them. That left holes in my understanding of Swift and Xcode. Nick covers EVERYTHING! Every comma, bracket, and space. He tells you what's important and what's not so important. He also presents it in a manner that's easy to understand and throws in some humour for fun. He doesn't talk like he's a professor infront of a class. Instead he talks like he's sitting beside you teaching a buddy to code. This makes it a lot more relaxing and not intimidating or formal, like other courses I've taken. This is definitely the best course people should take if they want to learn Swift.

I am/was just beginning to study iOS and found this course very helpful. I have also downloaded other courses on Swift and all are great, but what I like about this course is that it spends a little more time on the basics. It doesn't get into some of the heavier topics that other courses do, but rather keeps it simple. I feel that I have a more solid foundation from doing this course.

The structure of the course is well thought, going through the Apple Swift book. It help me to go and read the book and to better understand its contents, syntax and goals. Nevertheless it should had been more careful done. A lot of spelling errors. After a while we don't have Closed Caption anymore. And the examples could have been a little less on the go. But it is a really good point to start for those who don't know Swift!!!!