Can I hope to learn iOS development on my mid 2009 MBP? 13 Inch MBP Mid 2009

2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo

4 GB RAM

GeForce 9400M 256 MB

250GB HDD

I just installed El Capitan on in and it's crawling. I plan on upgrading the ram to 8 GB and slapping an SSD in it but even after that is it realistic for me to do light iOS Dev on it? Should I bite the bullet and buy a new laptop?
Definitely. I have the exact same configuration MacBook Pro, except I added some RAM to it (8 GB total) and installed an SSD. It may not do things at lightning speed, but the configuration is more than enough to work on Xcode. I've been learning it in for the past 2 months, so I know firsthand.