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I have a CS undergrad degree and have been programming for several years with my current company, messed around with Objective-C by making a few console apps and a few simple apps that I ran in the simulator: all basic stuff.

My company asked me to take on our in-house iOS development and they offered to send me "away" for training.

Has anyone been to either the Big Nerd Ranch or AboutObjects iOS training? Was it a worthwhile experience? Did you learn anything you couldn't have learned from books or other resources?

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I have read the BNR books. I think they are great. One of the others Aaron Hillegass was using objective-c back in the days of NextStep (working for NextStep). I know nothing about "AboutObjects" however – Maudicus Dec 8 '11 at 16:58
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Hi Slinky, putting two things up against each other (e.g. "Foo vs. bar: which is better?") doesn't really work here, but I don't think that's exactly what you were looking for anyway. I've revised your question to get away from looking like you're asking that. – user8 Dec 8 '11 at 17:30

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6 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

I took a 5 day course with AboutObjects for iOS and was very happy with the course. The instructor knew what he was talking about. Is there really anything that you could learn via a training course that you could not learn through books? It is just more convenient to consult with one resource than read multiple books. This course was definitely worth it in my opinion, as a quick start, and a good way to get the proper fundamentals. A lot of what you get out of a training course depends on what you put in.

Summary: (sorry if I went off topic)

  • Only experienced AboutObjects for the 5 day iOS course
  • Instructor definitely understands the subject and will elaborate on topics. Not just a shallow overview.
  • The environment was nice
  • For me it was a worthwhile experience

(My background is in C# and it was not too difficult to learn Objective-C, but you really need to keep an open mind about the language, framework, and tools. It is not like .NET, C# and Visual Studio, but that is not a bad thing. :)

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up vote 1 down vote

My experience is with a developer that started with little programming experience, the BNR what worked very well for him, in a relatively short period of time he became a senior developer. BNR is very much about writing code, not just book learning. It is totally immersive including lodging and food.

I highly recommend it.

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Did you mean "lodging"? Logging sounds like hard work! – Mark Canlas Dec 8 '11 at 20:17
@Mark Nice catch! Fixed. – CocoaFu Dec 8 '11 at 20:20
up vote 1 down vote

Slinky - I was in a similar position faced with ramping up a dev team that had significant Java experience to begin designing products for iOS.

I can say from my experience, the training received from Jonathan Lehr at About Objects was well worth the price. His team's experience in all things Apple and the quality delivery of the training proved to be far more valuable than the price paid. We have since built on the foundation and never once looked back! Be sure to take the Ansi-C portion if you have never coded such and come ready to have a great time.

I consider it a worthwhile investment in your career and/or team's future.

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up vote 1 down vote

I had training for iOS at AboutObjects in August and thought it was well put together and well worth the cost. The instructor had many years of experience in iOS development and was able to articulate the inner workings of iOS extremely well. I have a .Net/Java background, so having a good instructor to lead me through a totally different development platform was useful. After leaving the course I felt extremely comfortable with the syntax and the IDE.

Just my two cents. I had the same concerns when deciding how to get into iOS development.

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up vote 1 down vote

I have attended "iOS 5 Development for Pro Developers" training at AboutObjects, and it is a very worthwhile experience. I am a Java developer, have never worked on C, my suggestion is that reading a book about Objective-C (the one by Aaron Hillegass is good) and playing a couple of sample iOS projects in a Mac, getting yourself prepared for learning before you attend this class.

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up vote 1 down vote

My experience with AboutObjects was excellent. I would say that the 'ramp up' time from just reading a book or doing it yourself versus AboutObjects is greatly reduced. AboutObjects has classes for those don't even have programming experience, unlike BNR, which was great.

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