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I've been developed apps for iOS for sometime and find that there are many repeating tasks. So I want to write base classes that the upcoming projects will subclass, so that it will cost less time and more easily to track code across projects. The most concerned are

  1. Write good base model class that has many strategies (Core Data, Archiving, ...). This model class also has some JSON-to-property converting techniques like Mantle so that model on device and on server are the same

  2. Write good base networking class (mostly with AFNetworking)

  3. Write good base ViewController class. I see some repetitive tasks : avoiding keyboard with ScrollView, logging, crash tracking, loading views from Nibs, ...

  4. Find and use some other good categories for UIView, UINib, Autolayout, ...

These are just my concerns. It may seems a vague topic and I don't ask for how to use libraries or how to make reusable components.

I just want to ask about experience for making these kinds of base classes and where I can learn from

onmyway133
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    When are people getting it trough their head: AFNetworking is outdated and you should use NSULRSession. Also, if you want to develop your ability to work on the 4 mentioned points, start with reading the book of the gang of 4 and recognize those patterns in your own app. Do NOT use 3rd party libraries, they rarely give you added value. – Joride Mar 30 '14 at 17:10
  • Wrong. AFNetworking is already using NSURLSession as of version 2.0. As for do NOT use a 3rd party library, then you should try writing your own PDF parser. – Legoless Mar 30 '14 at 19:38

1 Answers1

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You are not the only one that has a problem with this, I've been going through same problem with many of the projects. So the best solution to this problem is the open source libraries. The good ones are usually updated often and keep up with Apple's SDK releases. I will explain what I use to keep boilerplate code at a minimum.

  1. Base model - Since I only use Network and Core Data models, I use MagicalRecord for Core Data and JSONModel for network based models (that map to API responses).

  2. Networking classes - are coupled with AFNetworking and previously mentioned JSONModel, I did not find to need anything else. I can easily extend those with categories.

  3. There are many libraries to avoid UITextField's with keyboard in a UIScrollView, but mostly I just use custom code. But if I need one, I follow TPKeyboardAvoiding. For crash tracking I just use Crashlytics or Flurry, they provide their own SDK, so I do not need much code. And I do not use NIB's anymore.

  4. There are many useful categories around on the web. I created my own repository as a CocoaPod, which keeps all useful categories in a single pod. I keep the repository up to date and add new categories and small classes when I need them. The down side of it is that you usually do not need all of them, so sometimes too much code is loaded. But until now I did not notice any performance downsides. If you want, you can take a look on GitHub, how it looks.

Do not forget about project initialization, I've been working on my own custom Xcode project templates to solve this problem.

Legoless
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