[MUSIC]

Hi, I'm Gabe, and I'm an iOS developer and teacher.

In this course we'll take an accelerated look at the fundamentals of

the Objective-C language as it relates to building iOS apps.

Now before we wheel out a single line of code,

let's get a couple of items squared away.

The first is a biggie.

Should you learn Objective-C at all?

Well, that depends on a few things.

Firstly, we need to know your objective.

See, if you're going to just dabble and build an app or two, or

try out iOS development, then Swift is the way to go.

I wouldn't worry about Objective-C until you've got a really good handle on Swift.

I hope you enjoyed our time together as much as I did.

All right, I think they're gone.

If you'd like to work in iOS professionally or

you want a deep knowledge of iOS, you'll wanna know both Swift and Objective-C.

There is and will continue to be mountains of code written in both languages, and

that code will need to be maintained for a long time to come.

So assuming you have a foundation in Swift, this is the right place for you.

The last group this course is geared towards is developers already fluent

in another object-oriented language.

If you wanna learn about Objective-C but don't want to hear explanations about what

instances and methods are, this is the place for you too.

If you're still unsure as to whether or not Objective-C is

something you want to learn, maybe a little more background will help.

[SOUND] So first off, it's good to know that Objective-C is a strict superset

of the C programming language.

That means that it includes all of C,

along with a bunch of other stuff added to allow for object-orientation.

One reason that this is important is that C isn't just any old language.

It's a really, really important language.

You find it all over the place, and more importantly, it's the basis for

Java, C#, C++, and lots more.

That means that by learning Objective-C,

you get a massive head start on learning those I just mentioned.

They aren't exactly the same, of course, but the syntax and

way of thinking is closely related and much of what you'll learn will transfer.

If you're only familiar with more succinct modern languages like Python or

Swift, and you want to add another language to your toolbelt,

Objective-C makes sense from that perspective too.

You'll be getting comfortable with a language that feels old.

And that may serve you well down the line.

Now assuming you've decided that you do wanna learn Objective-C,

let's just be sure that this is the right course for you.

I already mentioned that you should have some experience with either Swift or

another object-oriented language.

You should be very comfortable talking about classes, instances, arrays, methods,

parameters, and the like.

If you aren't, or you'd like to start right at square one,

we have a much more in-depth Objective-C Basics course and

a subsequent Object-Oriented Objective-C course, both of which are linked below.

Now before we get into the meat of the matter,

let's talk through how this course is structured and written.

Firstly, in this course we're gonna cover a lot of ground quickly.

It will be something like taking around ten hours of material and

getting it down to about three or four.

And yes, such an attempt at brevity for

a course on Objective-C is ironic to say the least.

Of course, that brevity will only be possible if we can leverage what we

already know and we'll assume what we know is Swift.

So when I start talking about a raise in Objective-C,

I'll mostly just talk about how they differ between the two languages, groovy?

I'll also be doing a lot of name dropping and

first-level introductions to topics and then referring you to some other material.

Some will be Treehouse courses, others will be external.

I'd strongly suggest you let yourself go down those paths when you get the inkling.

It should really flesh out your experience.

There aren't as many quizzes and

code challenges as you might be accustomed to, so

again you may want to use this course as a hub rather than as your definitive path.

In terms of structure, we're gonna begin here in stage one with an overview of

Objective-C and how it's perceived in the community, then do a rapid-fire count down

of Objective-C features and syntax that might trip up Swifties.

[SOUND] From there, we'll move to basic structures and syntax in stage two,

then on to object-orientation in stage three.

For stage four, we'll touch on a few common intermediate topics in Objective-C,

and then finally conclude in stage five where we'll see the language in action in

iOS apps.

All right, I think we've got all our disclaimers out of the way.

Join me in the next video where we'll talk about the good, the bad, and

the ugly of Objective-C.