Hosting workshops

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hosting my first workshop of the year for try! Swift World and I had a blast. The topic was SwiftUI and Core Data, and I had prepared a ton of content for the workshop. I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to cover it all.

It’s always hard to scope out exactly what you’ll cover in a workshop due to it’s more or less flexible nature.

When you work on a conference talk, you know exactly how much time you have, and you can adapt your content, pacing, and topics on your time window. You know that you’ll be able to speak uninterrupted and questions are saved until the end of the talk.

In a workshop, you plan for audience participation. Attendees will do some work on their own, and they’ll be able to ask questions as you go. Sometimes these are questions related to the materials you try to cover, other times you’re helping an attendee resolve a compiler error that prevents them from following along.

And even though this flexibility makes it hard to plan a workshop in detail, it’s my favorite part of hosting a workshop.

Being able to interact with people, and dive deeper into topics they’re interested in, and helping them learn something new through conversation is one of the most satisfying things when teaching.

Back to yesterday. I had prepared a lot of content, and wasn’t sure how much of it we’d be able to cover. I was especially a little uncertain because this was my first time hosting this specific workshop.

Luckily, everything went perfectly fine. We managed to get into all the topics I had prepared and the attendees were able to ask any questions they had. We went a little bit over time to cover all the questions but it wasn’t too bad.

I look forward to hosting the workshop again in a couple of weeks. At the same time, I’m working on a more in-depth 4-hour version of the workshop. For more information on the long version check out this page. If you’re interested in the next try! Swift version of my workshop, keep a close eye on their website. The next edition will be announced soon.

Cheers, Donny


Practical Core Data

Practical Core Data helps you learn Apple's Core Data framework without requiring any prior knowledge. You'll learn how to integrate Core Data in UIKit and SwiftUI applications. The book also covers data modeling, synchronizing your store with a custom backend or CloudKit, profiling and improving performance in a Core Data app, and using Core Data in unit tests.

By the end of the book, you'll know exactly how you can start using Core Data in modern applications.

Buy Practical Core Data for $34,99

Practical Combine

Practical Combine is a book that will help you learn Combine from scratch. You will learn about all aspects of Combine in a natural flow where you're eased into functional reactive programming with simple examples, and the difficulty gradually builds up to complicated integrations in later chapters.

Buy Practical Combine for $29,99

🎶 Currently on repeat 🎶

If you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I play guitar. I'm a huge music lover and want to share this with you. In this section I will share a new album that I've been enjoying a lot every week.

Architects - For Those That Wish To Exist

I promise this is the last time I’m featuring Architects for a while. It’s just that I’ve been super excited about this new album, and it’s finally available! And trust me, it’s worth a listen.


Other content that I really want to share with you

It’s a bold title, I know. That doesn’t change the fact that this post by Alex Grebenyuk is a fantastic read that provides a good insight into building an app for the mac with SwiftUI. If you’re interested in building something for the mac, definitely read this post. It’s really good.

An article by Alex Grebenyuk

Dynamic type is a fantastic feature for people that have trouble reading small text. Supporting dynamic type on iOS isn’t always a straightforward process so these tips that Daisy Ramos collected in her blog post for Lickability are extremely welcome!

An article by Daisy Ramos