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Cover of Start Here

Start Here

Learn to code with Swift and SwiftUI, from your first line to the App Store

You've never written code, or you tried once and stopped because the tutorial raced ahead. Start Here begins at zero. It explains what a program is before it asks you to type one, and it stays with you until your app is on the App Store. Written for Xcode 27, Swift 6.4 and iOS 27, the book takes you through 28 chapters in six parts. You learn the ideas behind code, then the Swift language in playgrounds, then how to build screens with SwiftUI. You meet Apple's frameworks, build one complete app and ship it. Old tutorial alerts show the outdated code you'll find online next to the modern form to use instead. You build six small apps along the way: Tap Counter, Hello Card, Recipe Card, Symbol Studio, Tip Splitter and Reading List. Then you build Waypoints, a personal places journal with a map, photos, saved data, charts and tests, and take it through TestFlight to the App Store. Every chapter opens with a chapter map and ends with a quiz and a hands-on task. Worked solutions for every task, a glossary with page references and a full index are at the back. The book also covers what many guides skip: Apple accounts, the free and paid developer programs, signing, App Review, privacy details and EU trader status.

Genres

ComputersTechnology

ISBN

9798908580212

Format

E-book / Digital online

Contributors

Cassian Drefke

Author

Cassian Drefke is the founder and CEO of Veyago, an independent software studio incorporated in New York in 2026. Veyago builds consumer apps with a privacy-first philosophy: an app should be useful for years, respect the people who use it and collect as little about them as it can. Cassian grew up in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and works across Europe in English, Dutch and German. Alongside Veyago he has worked as an ICT project lead, guiding a Dutch organization through a large Microsoft 365 migration. The work showed him that most people don't struggle with technology itself. They struggle when nobody explains the next step. Start Here grew out of a frustration. The Swift books on Cassian's own shelf explained the language, but he found them hard to actually learn from. They raced past the questions a beginner really asks: Where do I click? What should my screen look like now? Is my result correct? What does this error mean, and what do I do about it? So he wrote the book he wished he'd had. It starts at zero, explains why before how, shows each step on the screen, and stays with the reader from the first line of code to an app on the App Store. Outside software, Cassian is active in Model United Nations. At CWMUN New York 2026 he represented Guyana on the Security Council and won both Best Delegate and the World Changer award. The two worlds overlap more than they seem. Both reward careful listening, plain explanation and the patience to bring people with different starting points to the same place. He hopes Start Here gives new developers the same thing he looks for in every project: a clear first step, and the confidence to take the next one.

Veyago Inc.

(Various roles)