Re: Learning Mac programming (Cocoa)
Re: Learning Mac programming (Cocoa)
- Subject: Re: Learning Mac programming (Cocoa)
- From: David Thorp <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 17:00:06 +1000
Thank you very much to everyone who has responded to my previous post
"Learning Mac Programming".
I now have a couple more specific questions based on what you've all
said. (The following are my questions specifically about cocoa. I've
written another similar email to the webobjects list about my
webobjects questions).
But first, here's what I think I've learned from all of you:
Cocoa: isn't a language but a set of API's for making Mac OS X
development much easier than otherwise. There is a wealth of info
online for learning cocoa but to make any sense of that, I need to know
at least one of a number of things, but for desktop apps, Objective-C
is the most popular.
(I want to pursue Java at some time because of my interest in
WebObjects and exploring cross platform apps later, but one thing at a
time).
But initially for Cocoa, I'll need to know...
Objective-C: Apple has what seems to be an excellent tutorial
<
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/
index.html>. I'm very impressed with it, and happy that it'll be
enough at least for starters.
But to make any sense of that, I'll need to know...
C: or at least a basic knowledge of C. Apparently I don't need a
thorough knowledge of C. That's good news.
For what it's worth, a couple of you made the distinction between
learning a language and learning good programming techniques. I
thoroughly learnt Pascal at Sydney University a few years ago. It
wasn't so much a Pascal course as using Pascal to teach good
programming techniques. I came close to the top of that class, and so
am pretty confident that I've got good programming techniques down. I
just need to learn the languages etc. (though I'm certainly open to
improvement) :-)
Now... Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions for books, though I'm
pretty low on $$ at the moment. I've been reading through
"
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2003/07/22/cocoa_series.html"; ("C
is for Cocoa") as suggested by a couple of you and found that a great
start, but it's only one article among many (that haven't been written
yet).
So my questions are:...
1. Does anyone know of any other online tutorials that will teach me
enough C to then get through Apple's Obj-C tutorial or other like it?
What would be especially good is if such a tutorial was able to tell me
what I need to know for moving on to objective C and cocoa rather than
just teaching me everything, without helping sift for me. Know what I
mean?
2. Someone did suggest that learning Java from scratch is as easy or
easier than C, and is a good way into Cocoa development too. What are
the pros and cons of using Java instead of Obj-C for desktop app
programming on Mac OS X with Cocoa?
Thanks again, in advance for any further help and advice.
Cheers!
David Thorp.
Sydney/Brisbane, Australia.
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