Book Image

Learning Xcode 8

By : Jak Tiano
Book Image

Learning Xcode 8

By: Jak Tiano

Overview of this book

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a breakthrough in mobile computing and the birth of world-changing mobile apps. With a reputation as one of the most user-centric and developer-friendly platforms, iOS is the best place to launch your next great app idea. As the official tool to create iOS applications, Xcode is chock full of features aimed at making a developer’s job easier, faster, and more fun. This book will take you from complete novice to a published app developer, and covers every step in between. You’ll learn the basics of iOS application development by taking a guided tour through the Xcode software and Swift programming language, before putting that knowledge to use by building your first app called “Snippets.” Over the course of the book, you will continue to explore the many facets of iOS development in Xcode by adding new features to your app, integrating gestures and sensors, and even creating an Apple Watch companion app. You’ll also learn how to use the debugging tools, write unit tests, and optimize and distribute your app. By the time you make it to the end of this book, you will have successfully built and published your first iOS application.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Learning Xcode 8
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Introduction to unit tests


Depending on how and when you began learning about software development, the concept of unit testing may or may not be a part of your vocabulary. Often used in bigger projects with larger teams, unit testing can be seen as a waste of time for smaller developers who don't have the time or resources to spend on writing tests.

Regardless of your past experiences with unit tests, they're a great tool and an important part of Xcode's toolset, and it will be up to you to decide when to use them. Before we get into how they work in Xcode, let's first talk a bit about unit tests in general.

What is a unit?

So, the idea of testing seems pretty clear, but what exactly is a unit? It's up for a bit of interpretation, but generally you should think of a unit as the smallest piece of code that performs a discernible function. For example, if I have a function that processes some data and outputs some result, that could be a unit that we could test. In other cases, an entire class...