Is techdegree the only course you should take?

Howdy! Our current tracks are completely covered in the Techdegree curriculum, except for a few of the later Objective-C courses that we didn't deem appropriate for the Techdegree itself. You can try out the Techdegree as a free trial and see the curriculum and projects to see if it's a good fit for you. The course and workshop material is similar to our tracks, but the Techdegree has an extra layer of supported independent work with 12 projects and access to the Techdegree Slack community.

At this point in iOS, you are very likely to come across Objective-C code in existing projects, which is why we still think it's essential to learn Objective-C in addition to Swift. The Techdegree is structured in a way to interleave Objective-C material once you've mastered the basics of Swift programming and iOS development. While Swift may be the only language used in some companies, we've heard frustrations from some businesses who have trouble finding candidates who know both Swift and Objective-C.

If you want to work through just the tracks, try out Beginner iOS and the soon-to-be-published Intermediate iOS. They include all the material in the Swift language tracks, plus the additional iOS material that uses Swift. Like Charles said, there's hopefully enough material to help you learn either way. The tracks are the default way of working through material, and the Techdegree is the extra level of service and help that adds more structure and support to your learning process. Hope this helps!

I would learn anything and everything available on Swift and general iOS Dev, but objective-c is being phased out. A lot of the iOS SDK modules are based on objective-c, so it is definitely a good idea to be familiar with it. However, you are most likely going to be writing swift code exclusively in your professional career. There are great workshops down the way for key features such as core data and APIs which will require some SQL and general web architecture familiarity.

Everything essential for job readiness is included in your Techdegree track, but don't limit yourself to this. There are so many great resources on this website! I've only been here for like 2 weeks and I've learned so much already in comparison to my traditional, independent textbook reading and practice sessions.

-Charles