Re: New Cocoa Programmer
Re: New Cocoa Programmer
- Subject: Re: New Cocoa Programmer
- From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 16:38:54 -0500
on 11/10/01 12:11 PM, Marcel Weiher at email@hidden wrote:
>
> But, if the goal also includes getting folks with less experience
>
> excited and proficient in Cocoa/Objective-C, then you are wrong, wrong,
>
> wrong! What is the point of starting with C when at least a third of
>
> it will never be used at all, and another third will have to be
>
> unlearned?
>
>
There is no C you have to unlearn, though it might atrophy a little.
I guess I'm coming in on the tail end of a tired thread, here, but what the
hey.
My experience has been that your C knowledge won't even atrophy -- you will
need all of it at one time or another to use Cocoa to its fullest. I meant
to start compiling a list of examples of the more obscure C-isms that
actually are needed in Cocoa/Objective-C programming, but I never got around
to it and now I've forgotten the examples.
Most of the examples had to do with the fact that there are a lot of
functions in Cocoa, and some of them require use of the more obscure C-isms.
When you're just getting started with Cocoa, it's easy to overlook the fact
that all those functions are available, because they're documented in a
separate location, not in the class reference document for the class in
which they are declared.
One example that I do recall is that there are a number of functions and, I
think, instance methods, that require an understanding of C's syntax for
dereferencing pointers (when to use '&', and so on). Also, I frequently find
it very convenient to use the C terniary operator '?', which, when I was
first learning C, I thought was very obscure.
I'll make a point of compiling my list of examples for the next edition of
Vermont Recipes, because this is a question that often comes up with
newcomers.
--
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
http://www.quecheesoftware.com
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