I've used archiving, user defaults, and some Core Data in my apps before, but I'm running into a wall re: the best method for my current scenario. I have an app that needs to instantiate some objects from a resource file each time before it's used. An example of one of the objects could be a "MathQuestion" object that has the properties:
Ideally, I'd just have something like a spreadsheet with columns for each of these properties and rows for each of the different questions. That way, I would really be able to visualize all the data and make quick changes during development.
My app uses Parse, which is great for visualization and easy editing of values, but for this case, I'd rather the resources remained on the device and not the Parse server. I've been considering Core Data up till this point, but (this could be my inexperience with C.D.), I'm unaware of any way to manually edit the data—and it seems like it may be overkill for what I'm looking for anyways. (I basically just need a way to upload and parse a CSV!) Any advice would be welcome!
I would still recommend Core Data. It is simply the most efficient and scalable mechanism to store and retrieve data.
When I work in your kind of scenario, what I often do is work with a spreadsheet where I can conveniently edit the data. You could edit a CSV version of it that you have included in your target. (If this does not work for you, you could also copy paste into a separate CSV file right into Xcode.)
On every start, you just trash the data store (using NSFileManager when creating the NSPersistentStoreCoordinator). Then you call a method that reads in the CSV and stores it in Core Data.
Once you are done with development, you simply keep the sqlite file (you can include it in the bundle and copy it over, or re-generate it from your CSV the first time the app runs).