angelholme
iPF Noob
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- May 23, 2013
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I am currently developing an iOS application that lets the user download a set of question files (stored as xml) from a webservice (the webservice is acting as an intermediate interface - the files are created somewhere else), answer the questions through a standard interface (which will be the same for each question file) and post the response file (also in XML) back to the webservice.
The question files will all be downloaded at once (every six to eight months or so) so that the amount of interaction with the webservice is minimal, and so that the users don't need wifi access all the time.
The format of each file will be the same (XML based storage), however the contents of each of these files will change every six to eight months as the needs of the company change.
Each question file will have multiple "paths" in it - so that if the first question is "Have you read the Chronicles of Narnia?" then the next question will depend on whether the person answers yes or no (if they haven't read them, why bother asking what is their favourite one?)
My question is this :-
Someone we spoke to about this indicated that we couldn't change the flow of the program, and that we can't download new question files every six to eight months. That the program would not be able to use different question files without being recompiled to use them, and instead we would have to embed each of the question files in to the application and send out a new version of the application every time the question files change.
Can anyone tell me if this is actually true? Because the idea that an iOS application can't act in different ways based on imported files seems a little insane to me (but I am very new to iOS programming, so I could be missing something obvious!)
So - can you alter the flow of an iOS program based on imported file contents, or is program flow fixed and unalterable?
The question files will all be downloaded at once (every six to eight months or so) so that the amount of interaction with the webservice is minimal, and so that the users don't need wifi access all the time.
The format of each file will be the same (XML based storage), however the contents of each of these files will change every six to eight months as the needs of the company change.
Each question file will have multiple "paths" in it - so that if the first question is "Have you read the Chronicles of Narnia?" then the next question will depend on whether the person answers yes or no (if they haven't read them, why bother asking what is their favourite one?)
My question is this :-
Someone we spoke to about this indicated that we couldn't change the flow of the program, and that we can't download new question files every six to eight months. That the program would not be able to use different question files without being recompiled to use them, and instead we would have to embed each of the question files in to the application and send out a new version of the application every time the question files change.
Can anyone tell me if this is actually true? Because the idea that an iOS application can't act in different ways based on imported files seems a little insane to me (but I am very new to iOS programming, so I could be missing something obvious!)
So - can you alter the flow of an iOS program based on imported file contents, or is program flow fixed and unalterable?
