"Old code said programming to play the Swift Lake" a book finally published

Today, our first book, based on XCode6.1 's latest version of Swift Grammar, has a lovely name: "The old code says programming to the Swift River," and a beautiful cover:

This book is not a pedigree, it's just a five-bit it old yard kid.

One day in May, we have a few old yards to the software park at the door of the small noodle restaurant to eat, chat suddenly on the yard of the life of the farm has produced a lot of complaints, boredom, nothing to do, worry about the future of the road where, the final opinion of the consensus, decided to learn something or do something, through this discussion, A learning-oriented small team was born and took a helpless name: Old code Team-oldcoder, sounds so bleak.

Since there is a team, we have to think of a goal, in order to communicate smoothly, we unanimously agreed to use the American drama "Song of Ice and Fire" characters in the code, began a serious study. Can not let every little time wasted, hoping for our nearly 10 years of code farming career more than a little extra competitive.

We began to choose is to learn objective-c, although we have a few old guys have several years of development experience, but still need to tidy up, at this time WWDC2014 held, a new language was born-swift. What a good thing, we can finally give up objective-c that weird grammar, for a yard of farmer cock Silk, nothing is more secure than writing code, so we decided to start with Swift.

Work in the company to do something, inconvenient to take Mac these equipment in the company sloshing, so we study in Windows Learning, re-engage in virtual machine, do optimization, finally let OSX10.9.5 smooth seamless run in our work machine. This period of time is the company's business changes, there is a lot of time to spare, is really a good time to learn.

If an old yard and a small yard compared to the biggest advantage is what, I think that is the years carved by the calm and the degree of glasses as deep as the experience. We all have the habit of learning to do notes, while learning Swift grammar, while writing programs, while writing comprehension, unconsciously two months past, we unexpectedly 7788 accumulated nearly 100,000 words of text notes, look at the Word document constantly accumulate page book, we are in the swift chic Grammar, Subtle design and felt at the same time each other also teased each other: "Baelish, you do these broken code every day, you can improve the quality of your meal is not", even I mother are in the pure Leshan accent said: "Every night write that can change money not?" ”。 But we are all silently insisted, in fact, we also know that there is no use, but to meet the desire for new technology learning.

A lot of times, like things, no reason!

When we were pondering swift every grammatical point, we found that there are all kinds of swift learning groups on the Internet, while Beihang University college Matthew Small partners led GitHub's hobby of the open-source brother in 9 days to translate the swift nearly 600 pages of English manual. Our glasses suddenly shattered a ground, really is alitily, a college student unexpectedly has this perseverance, we discuss these after the tea in front of us these old wave to die on the beach Sina, we also began to refer to Matthew this document, but the more we see the translation is not very suitable, it is fully understandable, Because many of the small partners involved in translation are not it practitioners, or experience is shallow, the wording in the translation document also has a lot to consider. So we tried to join a few swift groups and talk to them about Swift's learning outcomes.

If you say C + +, if Java, if you say Lua, if you say JavaScript and other traditional languages, we have a few old guys are not a master, but when we communicate in the Swift group, we find our shortcomings, but also let us shock is the group of small partners are mostly college students, The scariest thing is that a high school student in Wuhan likes to talk to me about git usage, and I'm so scared that when I'm older, I'm going to write a bubble in C, which has been sealed by the girls in the class as a male God. But they know so much.

In the group, old yards, Oldcoder slowly has a reputation, we imagine a just debut of the Little Knight and a decade of experience of the old knight compared to the old Knight Martial arts, even if the weak, it is easy to use experience in exchange for respect. At this time the electronics industry publishing house Dong Ying Editor in a wind light cloud light afternoon knocked my QQ head.

" you are Tyrion"; "I Am"; " what do you think of Swift? "fun but difficult to learn", "How are you learning ", "OK, nearly 100,000 words of reading notes", " have not considered the book, let more Friends benefit "; "We are not so noble, just learn to play"; "I'm thinking about it, tell you!" ”....

Finally, we have a few old guys to discuss, write, write, anyway, in China to write a book is to fool people, copy it a book is done, simple! Simple! In fact, later found not easy!

No accident, we wrote an outline, and the electronics industry publishing House signed a contract, in fact, there is no change in life, but more than a nameless vanity. Home, my wife called me to take the baby, I will be justified to say , "Don't bother me, brother write a book!" "When I called my mom and dad, I said," I'm writing a book! I haven't had time to call you lately! ", my mother will always take a mouthful of authentic Gansu Soil said," The forehead baby good, write well, write and then call! In fact, I often hide in the study, read the Millet box in the classic American drama. Now think about it, what a shame!

Later, I released the old code in the group to write the news, Swift group of younger brothers began to despise, " oh, is not copying Chinese documents, the English document translation!" "and then they began to ask us questions, to give us advice, this group of children is lovely, simple, we have no reason to ask us a question when said," sorry, we will not! "The man who has worked for 10 years, needs bark No!" So we once again in the small noodle shop in area B said: " we are the entire professional book it!" ".

Because in foreign companies to fight, English natural barrier-free, so we set up a micro-blog, concerned about the swift version of the update, the first time to translate and release XCode6 versions of the Releasenote, and then set up the old code cloud disk, download every Xcode installation files of the DMG, Easy for those with no developer account. Apple from XCode6 Beta1 to Beta7,xcode6 GM, to XCode6.2 Beta1, we should be the first in China to release a detailed update of the small learning team.

Later with Matthew, thanks to his trust, "Swift programming Language Chinese Version", by our continuous maintenance, we have corrected some of the translation errors in the document, added the Swift version history section, but also in a vernacular way to translate the Apple website Swift Blog in the article. This process is hard, because most of the time when the children sleep at night, some of our old people began to work related. But we are happy, because every time we publish the completion, will harvest the group of children Praise Voice: " ugly elder brother V5", " old yards most ox " and so on.

The painstaking people, the day is not negative, has the ambition, the matter unexpectedly becomes!

Time is fast, by August, according to the requirements of the press, we must hand in the manuscript at the end of August, in fact, we have completed the first version of the manuscript at the beginning of August, based on the Beta3 version of the time, we began to tangle in the end is not handed? The team has a brother said: " pay it, then out of the revised version", Swift group of small partners and a part of our fans are also shouting: " ugly brother hurriedly out, there are problems to change it ." This time the first swift tutorial on the market, close the teacher's book publishing, Guan teacher is my heart Idol, code Industry predecessors, editor worried, urging us to the manuscript. As a team leader, I have a very tangled, I know if not to pay, we will lose a lot of readers, if the total feeling of psychological owe panic. In the evening Bealish car home, we talk about this matter, Baelish said: " this depends on your choice, you are going to like rectification teacher, write a well-lasting C language program design, or want to quickly go public, attract eye fire general." In fact, I chose the latter. Because the domestic technical books are basically doing so.

At night continue in the swift group and small friends bragging, there are several groups of friends, despicable three, silly lack in there said: " whose books do not buy, just wait for ugly elder brother's book!" ", I was deeply despised myself, if I now hand in the manuscript to the editor, know that there may be beta6,beta7, knowing that Swift grammar will change, the book also listed grammar has changed, this is not deceptive? In the end, I issued a command as the person in charge: " brothers, bowed down to write the book, our purpose is not urgent, indisputable, not noisy, not panic, swift version of the day not out of the official version, our book a day not listed." The team's brothers had no objection, and the editor agreed. So we keep on holding on.

Swift is a very new language, the deeper the study of Swift grammar too flexible, easy to learn easily, Xcode every new release, we have to go back to modify the previous article, each time the reconstruction of the previous text, are basically to rewrite, in Robb words: " strange, At that time, when I wrote that I wrote very well, how to re-reconstruct the time, found that their understanding is a piece of excrement! ". Remember most clearly, in September, Baelish told me that he rewrite the third chapter, I immediately angry, because to hand over the manuscript can not be changed greatly. He said that our understanding of the string Unicode character set was completely wrong, and I read it again and experimented with swift Beta7 to understand it clearly. At last I gave in, because he was right.

The process of writing a book is hard, like watching a wife with a big belly for 10 months, but when looking at their own books in the major online shop sales, that feeling is happy. For royalties? I can only helplessly smile, why, our CTO group of an old buddy gave a very good summary: " a book proves that you are 30 years old in the six months not wasted it, there is no other!" ".

Book today sold, the first day sold more than 20 copies, the next day to sell a few copies, to our writing this article has sold about 40, wife Happy asked me when I can use royalties to buy her a bag, I said with a wry smile that if you want to buy 5000 lv, estimated this 3000 sold out I have not enough. But what makes us these old guys happy is that the feedback received so far has been given to the reader: " affordable, easy to understand, worth buying ". Think about a group of unknown yards of farmers, in addition to the wedding day firecrackers, a sea of people, a little star-like existence, what achievements can be compared with this? And the editor chatted about the sales of the feedback, I like her conclusion: " believe the reader, the reader's eyes are discerning, do you have the heart they see!" ". And I just want to say: " painstaking people, the days are not negative, there are volunteers, things have become ."

Next, we will continue to improve the Swift programming language Chinese version, we have set up a problem tracking list, ready to give readers friends about the questions in the book feedback. These two days also received readers about the wording of the book, picture title and other issues of opinion, summed up a bit there are nearly 20, the quotient of no grammatical use error.

If someone asked me, you this book has what characteristics, I would say, language humor, open heart learn grammar, the story of the idea, who said grammar book must be a face-to-face to have fan:

If someone asks you what the hell you're talking about, I'll say it's a map to help Swift's Little white Primer:

If someone asks, what do you think of your little book Reader's friends:

Do not write, after the age of staying up late, to 10 o'clock will not carry, dear you, good night!

"Old code said programming to play the Swift Lake" a book finally published