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