The Apple Developer Program ~

pksTKS107 wrote:

I want to join the Apple Developer Program.

I need to know what I am supposed to be doing while there or?;

What should I be focused on learning while there?

The Apple Developer program provides access to developer-related tools and services of interest to application developers, and the ability to upload your created apps for review and distribution.

The Apple Developer program is not a training or educational program, though they do have some limited resources available. It’s not a learn-to-code resource, and assumes you’re already familiar with programming on some other semi-recent computing platform.

You’ll probably start out on the free tier of the program, which is entirely workable for learning, but has some limits. From that and access to Xcode (available free in the App Store) and your own hardware, you can learn about development for Apple platforms.

Lots of doc here: Support Articles - Support - Apple Developer

An overview of how to obtain development-related resources: Support - Apple Developer

As it will set the path for the tools available, what gear do you have access to?

The iPad from the footer of your original posting here? Or do you have access to a Mac, or PC?

iPad comes with some limits, particularly around running code. Mac has a wider variety of development-related tools available, and has fewer limits.

Also, which platform do you want to develop for? That too steers you toward particular tools.

Some more general comments follow.

Apple tries to position Swift as an introductory language, though it’s really not. It’s also a moving target, which tends to make finding contemporaneous coursework and related materials more difficult.

One of the more common choices for an introductory programming language is Python. Harvard has a free introduction to computing and to programming in Python, CS50x: https://pll.harvard.edu/subject/python

For folks just getting started and learning program flow and related topics, Scratch can be useful.

Apple Playgrounds app is probably the closest for iPad in the Apple language realm, and might be a path for learning — but there are big gaps in Playgrounds including algorithms and data structures, and a view toward how computers (and apps) are constructed such as what CS50x covers.

Some of the previous discussions on this and similar:

Where can I learn about Swift? - Apple Community

I'm just starting out coding/programming - Apple Community

Good places to learn swift for IOS app de… - Apple Community

And a caveat on the AI hype, as you will absolutely encounter it when looking for tools and topics:

I’d be exceedingly cautious around the tsunami of AI hype. AI is, for lack of a better word, dumb. It’s a parrot. It can sound smart, but it’s quite literally just stringing together words. Areas of AI including machine learning (ML) are quite very useful for some tasks. Others such as large language models (LLMs) can be useful for some cases, but you can also spend days debugging subtle or not-so-subtle errors in some of the prettiest-looking source code the LLM generated for you.

When you’re just learning, I’d not try to also figure out where AI or an LLM is appropriate, and where it’s going to be a time and budget and resource hole.

For example: I’m using Apple Intelligence for text auto-corruption, err, correction for this reply, and it’s freely loading completely wrong words, and I’m then having to re-read and correct those.

Note: The Apple forum software lost its marbles again. I think I’ve re-added all the links that were clobbered when the forum lost this reply. Hopefully, I’ve re-added all of them.

pksTKS107 wrote:

I wish LoL….

That said, I have and will continue to pursue My interest in everything Tech. For example: I know that Java is a Compile at Runtime language (I may have that part wrong);

Java was an attempt by Sun Microsystems to have one language run everywhere on all platforms. Or as it became known, write once, debug everywhere.

Java is interpreted, and the performance of the interpretation led to the use of Just in Time (JIT) compilation, which was a way to add more overhead to try to save on future overhead, when parts of the Java code were found to be running a whole lot. The hottest (busiest) spots in the Java code were compiled, the results which running far faster than interpreted code, but the compilation operation itself is comparatively expensive.

Java was intended to be a widespread language and to replace, for instance, COBOL in business environments.

Business-wise, Java was intended to change businesses from being dependent on particular computing platforms and on their associated computing platform vendors — such as on what are now largely obscure operating systems, or dependent on Microsoft Windows or Unix or Linux — to be dependent on Sun and Java.

After some years, Oracle acquired Sun. I’d be exceedingly careful around the Oracle products and licenses, these days. Complying with the Oracle licensing can get expensive.

that Swift may do something similar.

Swift can be interpreted, yes. It’s not as common to run Swift as an interpreted language.

And with concepts such as JITs blurring the line between interpreters and compilers, too.

There have been prototype JITs for Swift, but as far as I know none are in widespread use. But I also don’t use interpreted Swift all that often.

I was able to do some cut and paste JavaScript pages and;

JavaScript shares a few letters with Java, but is very different. I would most definitely not suggest starting to,learn programming with JavaScript (or ECMAScript).

I know a little about Java FX being something like a web page builder for Java ~

One of the variations of Java.

But it is all hodgepodge because of the way I had to stumble into computer languages….

So no, I’m not even close to Developing anything but My desire to be Developing something LoL….

Welcome to programming. Lots of jargon. Jargon all the way down, as the joke goes.

You could start learning swift if you have a Mac or iPad. Harvard’s YouTube has full courses on cybersecurity. There are other great resources out there to learn other programming languages, and not just that, but also other topics in this field. The nice thing about this is, you can learn almost everything free. It’s all available online.

Having said that, I’m just getting started in this too, so I don’t know a whole lot about it. I’m just learning python as a side gig whenever I have time. There’s a few developers here, and many people with extensive careers in the tech world, so I’m sure someone will have some advice for you.

Hello!

Are you a developer?