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High-level overview of Cocoa - thoughts from a newbie
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High-level overview of Cocoa - thoughts from a newbie


  • Subject: High-level overview of Cocoa - thoughts from a newbie
  • From: Mario Diana <email@hidden>
  • Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 13:15:34 -0500

After all the sparks over Apple's documentation, I had to chuckle when the "New to Cocoa" post came up. Look, I'm a newbie who -- after much banging my head against the wall -- is only just starting to catch on to how to wind my way up and down the documentation. It ain't easy, and I'm finding out programming is like researching a thesis paper more than anything else. (Well, okay, it's a lot more fun when the researching is behind you and you're actually coding.)

My first introduction to programming was Dave Mark's LEARN C ON THE MACINTOSH. A book like that, only on Cocoa-Objective-C (and, actually, I'm a Java person) is a first step toward what's needed.

The big difference that any new book should have would be the approach. The book should immediately, after a basic syntax introduction, jump into using the libraries and Interface Builder. Teach a beginner to construct a simple interface for input and output (a couple of windows), and then get him or her writing in Objective-C all the "compute prime numbers" toy programs. While doing this, NSArray, NSDictionary and all the other data structures and so forth could be introduced and explored. Along the way, a person could be introduced to the skills needed to understand how documentation is organized, and how to use it. (This is a lot less obvious than understanding "index out of range" errors.)

Teach the use of libraries and how to read documentation. Let's leave behind C, C++, and all that. After a person has learned the joy of programming, they'll be motivated to learn that and anything else they need.

Now, truthfully, a book like that wouldn't be helpful to me, but I think it would help nurture the next generation of Macintosh programmers.


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