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macOS Do I really need an Obj-C book?

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Eddiestein

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 30, 2007
76
0
I've had my Mac for a little over a year, and I think it's overdue for me to learn Cocoa. I've looked around and Aaron Hillegass' book Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X seems to be the recommended book, so I will be getting that.

But I was wondering if I should also get an Objective-C book? I have a lot of experience with object-oriented programming as well as C programming (and I'm getting into C++ now). Is there really anything special about Objective-C (versus other OO languages such as Ruby, which I use on a regular basis) that would require another book to learn about?

Thank you in advance.
 
HiRez

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,250
2,576
Western US
You don't really need an Objective-C book, particularly if you already know C. The Apple Objective-C PDF is quite sufficient to teach you Objective-C along with what's in the Hillegass book. That said, the Kochan book is very good if you wanted to spend some more time with it before diving into Cocoa.
 
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Eddiestein

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 30, 2007
76
0
Just what I thought. I've gone ahead and ordered Hillegass' book at Amazon and it should arrive within a few days.

Eddiestein
 
x704

x704

macrumors regular
Apr 15, 2006
118
0
I don't think I could live without at least one book on each language I use, even if it is only for a reference...
but then again programming is just one of my hobbies (to date).
 
mduser63

mduser63

macrumors 68040
Nov 9, 2004
3,042
31
Salt Lake City, UT
Hillegass does have a chapter that covers Objective-C, but he assumes that you already know C well and probably know OO programming concepts in general. Sounds like you're the kind of person he was targeting with that chapter. Like other said though, if you want an in depth book about Objective-C, go with the Kochan book. It assumes no prior programming experience at all, but it goes in depth and is very well written.
 
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Eddiestein

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 30, 2007
76
0
I read up on Objective-C to get its syntax. I've been porting an old app I wrote over to Objective-C to test myself and so far, so good. Everything in Objective-C is 100% familiar to me (from other OO languages).

Now, all I need is Cocoa skills, then it's complete. :) (Amazon shipped the book today.)

Thanks to everyone here :)

Eddiestein
 
I

ivasena

macrumors newbie
Aug 5, 2007
4
0
I'm new to Obj-C as well and switched to Mac 3 months ago. IMHO you become a programmer not mainly with the knowledge of a language but with the knowledge of a framework. I used to code on C++, no do on C#. Obj-C doesn't seem something taking much time to learn. But, when I tried to create my first app on Cocoa.... man, here is where the difficulties begin ;) Internet is full of useful articles and docs (even developer.apple.com ;) ) which could help you with Cocoa. Personally I'm not going to buy any book on Obc-C. As people already told here that brief PDFs would be enough.
 
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