Re: Help for a beginner..
Re: Help for a beginner..
- Subject: Re: Help for a beginner..
- From: Brad Gibbs <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 10:35:28 -0700
I had no knowledge of or experience with programming when I started
last April. I started with Kochan's Objective-C book, then Hillegass
Third Edition, then XCode Unleashed. That happened to be the order in
which they were released, but it was a good way to go -- I felt one
led right into the other.
Safari has a beta version of Objective-C 2.0 available now as a PDF.
It's not complete, but there's enough there to make it worth a look.
Also, Pragmatic Programmer's has a beta version of Cocoa Programming:
A Quick Start Guide for Developers. I think you'd still want to be
familiar with Kochan's material before starting this book, but you
might read through it before starting Hillegass to get a 50,000-ft
view of Cocoa before diving down to the 10,000-ft. view offered in
Hillegass. XCode Unleashed gets further down into the mechanics of
XCode, version control, etc.
Apple's documentation and sample code are helpful, but, for me, I
needed a good understanding of Kochan's material and some of Hillegass
before Apple's documentation made any sense, even the conceptual docs
on Objective-C 2.0 or Cocoa.
I'd like to find a good book on object-oriented design and how to go
about designing classes, etc., if anyone has any ideas...
On Oct 4, 2008, at 6:12 AM, Jason Stephenson wrote:
Rob Keniger wrote:
On 04/10/2008, at 9:46 AM, mmalc crawford wrote:
Start with Programming in Objective-C by Stephen Kochan (depending
on how quickly you want to get underway, you may consider waiting
for the second edition):
<http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Objective-C-Developers-Library-Stephen/dp/0672325861/
>
<http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Objective-C-2-0-Developers-Library/dp/0321566157/
>
I totally agree with mmalc, this is the first book you should buy.
Despite what others have said, I highly recommend that you do NOT
start with Kernigan and Richie, it's simply not the best learning
tool for getting into Mac programming. K&R is extremely dry and
although it teaches you plain C, you don't need to know most of the
stuff in that book to write good Objective-C.
Stephen Kochan's book teaches you everything you need to know about
programming in Objective-C, including the bits of the C language
you need to know and none of the bits you don't. It is also one of
the most well-written technical books I have ever read.
Ditto.
Plus, I'd like to add that Kochan also introduces you to the basic
programming concepts along the way. He doesn't just teach the
language or the Objective-C idioms, but several chapters discuss
things like basic data types and looping. So, you'll not learn just
Objective-C the language, but you'll get a fairly decent
introduction to the basics to be an effective programmer in any
language.
Kernighan and Ritchie don't do this in their small book. They assume
you already know the basics of programming, and they are only
interested in introducing you to the C language. It would help to
have some basic programming knowledge: data structures, looping,
recursion, etc. *before* reading K&R.
I've never read it, but I imagine that the book on C by Kochan (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Programming-in-C/Stephen-G-Kochan/e/9780672326660/?itm=1
) is equally as good as his book on Objective-C.
Once you've read the Kochan book you should get Aaron Hillegass'
"Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X", which goes beyond the Objective-C
language to teach you the mechanics of working with the Cocoa
frameworks.
Ditto, and Fritz Anderson's Xcode Unleashed is another good choice
for a second or third book. It covers the Xcode 3 programming
environment in a bit more detail than Hillegass's book, and has some
excellent chapters on using libraries and private frameworks.
Jason
_______________________________________________
Cocoa-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list.
Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden
_______________________________________________
Cocoa-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list.
Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden