iOS Stanford class and 10.6

[porcupine8]

Im about to start the iTunes U Stanford iOS programming class.

The thing is, I'm running 10.6 on my Mac, and Xcode 4 is only available on 10.6 if you pay the $100 developer fee (which I'm hoping not to do until I'm actually working in n app, not just learning my way around).

The class says it's updated for iOS 5. For those who have taken it or at least looked at it, do you think I could get away with using Xcode 3 or do I need to be working with the latest version? Or am I missing something and this is not actually a problem?

 

[xStep]

I haven't looked at the latest course. Why not download an earlier version of the course that matches your current specs. Everything you learn will still apply and then you could look at the newer course version when you have more knowledge and and updated system.

 

[pkmcculloch]

I'm halfway through the course, so this is only another beginners opinion.

Unless you think you really want to target iOS 4 then I'd take the latest version of the course and somehow move to XCode 4.

The older course will predate ARC, so you'll probably spend some time worrying about memory management which, depending on your background, may make things quite a bit more difficult.

The other iOS5/XCode 4 features that the course relies upon (so far) are storyboards & gesture recognisers.

I upgraded to lion & got XCode from the app store. In retrospect, I should have just joined the developer program (which I'm about to do) from the outset.

If you don't want to upgrade then use an earlier version of the course.

 

[porcupine8]

I upgraded to lion & got XCode from the app store. In retrospect, I should have just joined the developer program (which I'm about to do) from the outset.
.

What other advantages does joining the program have that you wish you'd had from the beginning?

 

[1458279]

At $100/year that's about $8/month... I signed up just to be able to test on the device. I really wanted to see the code working on the device.

They have a whole bunch of sample code that really helps to see how things work and access to the developers forum.

 

[pkmcculloch]

What other advantages does joining the program have that you wish you'd had from the beginning?

Testing on a real device & access to the developer forums.

 

[robvas]

Bite the bullet and upgrade to Lion. As already mentioned, you can't use ARC, and you'll end up doing so many workarounds when following the latest tutorials and books. It really is a big pain. Apple is good (bad?) at leaving previous versions in the dust.

Lots of features or libraries are built into the latest OS - good for users because they just need to have the newest OS but bad for developers because they need to upgrade to use the newest tools.