Re: New Cocoa Programmer
Re: New Cocoa Programmer
- Subject: Re: New Cocoa Programmer
- From: email@hidden
- Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 08:44:44 -0500
On Saturday, November 10, 2001, at 08:07 AM, Joseph Greco wrote:
Hi!
I am a new programmer who knows some Q-Basic, Basic, and HyperTalk, and I
am interested in programming in Cocoa on Mac OS X. I have done Apple's
tutorials, but I am looking for a good reference that explains what all
the Obj-C code does and how it interfaces with the GUI, and how classes,
subclasses, outlets, etc work. Is "Learning Cocoa" a good book for this?
If not, what would you recommend?
Personally, I think it is crap, but your mileage may vary! Since the book
came out I'd say about 2/3s of the commentators on this list find serious
fault, while the other third don't seem to think it's _that_ bad. Again,
personally, and from the prospective of a beginner
with only one semester of Fortran 25 years ago to start with, there is
NOTHING that I can recommend. So far, the emphasis is on getting
experienced programmers up to speed; no one, including Apple, has seen fit
to try and explicate Cocoa for beginners. The assumption is that you
already have a degree in Computer Science and at least five years
experience in something like Java or C++ under your belt. A guy like that
is what they call a "Newbie" around here. On the surface this seems to
make good sense in that Apple is desperate for actual "Native" programs
for OS X; on the other hand it is extremely short-sighted in that the
theory that only experienced programmer--sorry, software engineers--are
actually able to write worthwhile programs is a gross contradiction of the
hype about Cocoa, especially using Objective-C, and. just plain wrong.
I'm afraid that the only thing you can do is bite the bullet like I have
and just keep at it until the fog lifts. How long this will take varies
with the individual; there's me with a total inability to visualize in
three dimensions who is still struggling after six months, although making
some progress, to a very bright 14 year old from London who seems to take
to Cocoa like a fish to water! Good luck, and if you're up to it bitch at
Apple for more educational materials every chance you get. There are a
dozen or more Apple folks on this list who are very sympathetic as well as
extremely helpful, and they need all the ammo they can get to convince
the powers-that-be to get with the program.
Brian E. Howard
Cocoa Cult Central