Book updates and a new workshop

It's been less than three weeks since I launched my Practical Core Data book but it feels like it's much longer ago.

After releasing the book I immediately started working on expansions for the content. Some of the expansions I'm writing because I felt like I wanted to add some more depth to the book. Other expansions are the direct result of reader feedback.

To me, reader feedback is essential to being able to improve and enhance my books where possible. Some readers preface their email with sentences like "I'm sorry to bother you" or "I hope you don't mind me asking". I want to say right now that you're not bothering me, and I don't mind receiving questions in my mailbox.

If you've been considering sending me an email about one of my books but haven't I encourage you to go ahead and do it anyway. Your feedback is valuable.

After releasing Practical Core Data, I had a chat with my friend Jeroen from the AppForce1 podcast. He asked whether I'd like to host a workshop about Core Data that he'd help me set up and run so of course, I said yes immediately!

We're organizing two workshops and they will take place on April 22nd, 2021, and April 29th, 2021. You can learn more (and grab your tickets) right here. I hope to see you at the workshop!

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.

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.

🎶 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 - Dead Butterflies Architects? Again? Yes. Architects. Again. They're a great band and this new song is an absolute banger. I can't wait for their new album that drops in a month. Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Music

Preventing unwanted fetches when using NSFetchedResultsController and fetchBatchSize

When you're working with Core Data, fetched result controllers, and collection views, you'll probably want to make use of the new convenient diffable data source snapshots. Unfortunately, there are some downsides to using diffable data source snapshots withs fetched results controller if your fetch request is set up to fetch data in batches. In this week's post, I show you how to use the older fetched results controller delegate methods to collect changes and apply them to your collection view.

Other content that I really want to share with you

Closures in Swift explained with Code Examples

Closure are a topic I get asked about a lot. They can be a complex topic, especially for developers that are new to programming and Swift. Antoine does a great job of explaining how closures can be used in this post.

An article by Antoine van der Lee

Hacking with Swift community awards

Every year, Paul Hudson from Hacking with Swift hosts his community awards. These awards are a great way to appreciate all the hard work that folks from our community do to help others. The HWS awards are currently in their voting phase so don't forget to cast your votes for your favorite tool, talk, podcast, and more.

An article by Paul Hudson

Identity Pinning

Certificate pinning for iOS apps is a topic that a lot of us have heard about, but only a few of us have implemented certificate pinning. Apple published a post late last week that describes how certificate pinning works. It's definitely worth a read if you want to familiarize yourself with certificate pinning.