I've done all sorts of research today on best practices with regards to declaring IBOutlets and instance variables, managing them, using the correct accessors and properly releasing them. I'm pretty much there, but I've got some niche questions that I hope somebody will be able to advise the best practice on. I'll format them as code and comment the questions so as to make it easier to understand. I've excluded some obvious parts that I didn't think were relevant and can be safely assumed to work (like pre-processor stuff, @end, required implementation methods etc).

**MyViewController.h**

```
@class OtherViewController;

@interface MyViewController : UIViewController {

     NSString *_myString;
     BOOL _myBOOL;

}

// The first two properties aren't declared in the interface
// above as per best practices when compiling with LLVM 2.0

@property (nonatomic, retain) OtherViewController *otherViewController;
@property (nonatomic, retain) UIButton *myButton;
@property (nonatomic, copy) NSString *myString;
@property (readwrite) BOOL myBOOL;

```

**MyViewController.m**

```
@implementation MyViewController

// Synthesizing IBOutlets on iOS will cause them to be
// retained when they are created by the nib

@synthesize otherViewController;
@synthesize myButton;

// Assign instance variables so as to force compiler
// warnings when not using self.variable

@synthesize myString = _myString;
@synthesize myBOOL = _myBOOL;

- (void)viewDidLoad {

     // QUESTIONS:

     // 1. Ignoring convenience methods, can you still alloc and init in dot notation
     //    even when it's being properly synthesized?

     self.myString = [[NSString alloc] initWithString:@"myString"];
     self.myString = existingNSStringObject;

     // 2. Should you always call methods for IBOutlets and instance variables using dot notation?
     //    Is there any difference seeing as these aren't directly invoking setters/getters?

     [self.myButton setText:self.myString];
     [myButton setText:self.myString];

     [self.otherViewController.view addSubview:mySubview];
     [otherViewController.view addSubview:mySubview];

     [self.myButton setAlpha:0.1f];
     [myButton setAlpha:0.1f];
     self.myButton.alpha = 0.1f;
     myButton.alpha = 0.1f;

     // 3. How fussy are scalar variables in terms of getters and setters,
     //    given that there is a @synthesize declaration for them?

     self.myBOOL = YES;
     myBOOL = NO;

     if(self.myBOOL) { ... }
     if(myBOOL) { ... }

     // 4. On instantiation of new view controllers from NIBs, should you use
     //    dot notation? (I haven't been doing this previously).

     otherViewController = [[OtherViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"OtherView" bundle:nil];
     self.otherViewController = [[OtherViewController alloc] ... ]

}

- (void)viewDidUnload {

     // 5. Best practice states that you nil-value retained IBOutlets in viewDidUnload
     //    Should you also nil-value the other instance variables in here?

     self.otherViewController = nil;
     self.myButton = nil;

     self.myString = nil;

}

- (void)dealloc {

     [otherViewController release];
     [myButton release];
     [_myString release];   

}

```