When Mike Clark from the Pragmatic Programmers asked us to review his new Becoming Productive in Xcode screencast series, I mistakenly figured that — given the time I’d spent preparing our piece — there’d be little new to learn. There’s a lot to learn from these screencasts; read on for details:

Episode 1: Essential Shortcuts

Whenever I learn a new editor, I stumble along using little more than basic text editing skills and a few advanced tasks whose keystrokes I’ve somehow memorized. Eventually I find myself working with someone who has really mastered the editor and, in no time at all, modeling their usage, I’m a power-user. Mike’s first episode, “Essential Shortcuts”, makes a great power-user stand-in.

Episode 2: Power Moves

The second episode covers text macros (text fragments that expand into functions, control structures and other common text blocks), user scripts (external code that processes file text or automates tasks), templates (for projects and files), and building.

Summary

If the first hour you spend in Xcode is spent alongside Mike’s “Essential Shortcuts” it’ll be time well spent. It’s be the fastest way to get up to speed and, at $5USD, it’s a bargain. Hold off on the second episode until you need custom macros or templates, user scripts, or tweaks to the your build process.