Writing Modern Code with Blocks

Abstract

If there#x2019;s a trend to be picking up on with regards to Apple#x2019;s development of the developer tools and languages surrounding Cocoa Touch#x2019;s development, it#x2019;s that Apple is trying to make things as easy as possible for developers to create engaging, easy-to-use apps. It seems that with every new iOS release, there are more ways in which your life gets easier as a Cocoa Touch developer. One such way occurred with iOS 4.0 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard and is actually a new feature added by Apple to the C language: blocks. C language development in general moves at a glacial pace, so any new features are news just by being new features added to C. Blocks are exciting for much more than that; they allow greater freedom, more logical code grouping, and better encapsulation in your code. In this chapter, we#x2019;ll discuss what blocks are, how they work, and why you#x2019;ll want to use them. We#x2019;ll also cover some of Apple#x2019;s new APIs that require you to use blocks, a glimpse of which you#x2019;ve already gotten in the Twitter example from Chapter 6. Finally, we#x2019;ll revisit that example to expand on its features, turning it into a much better app. First, let#x2019;s talk about what blocks even are.