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macOS Objective-C
- Thread starter Ezra12
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http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/ObjC.pdf
Start there, ask questions here.
-Lee
Start there, ask questions here.
-Lee
That PDF will scare the OP away. It assumes far too much knowledge and based upon the OP's question, I doubt whether they have that knowledge.
If you want to learn Objective-C, buy a book. The only book worth buying is still Kochan's book. Programming in Objective-C. You will find it on Amazon. There is an update for Objective-C 2.0, but unless Kochan is allowed to say why, it was pushed back to December 28. I am going to assume, it was pushed back as Apple legal rep decided the contents were still under NDA as the work on Objective-C 2.0 still constitutes development on the iPhone.
If you want to learn Objective-C, buy a book. The only book worth buying is still Kochan's book. Programming in Objective-C. You will find it on Amazon. There is an update for Objective-C 2.0, but unless Kochan is allowed to say why, it was pushed back to December 28. I am going to assume, it was pushed back as Apple legal rep decided the contents were still under NDA as the work on Objective-C 2.0 still constitutes development on the iPhone.
Agreed... Kochan's book is a good start he doesn't even assume any knowledge of C.
Another thought... I'm not an expert programmer, but I think it might be beneficial to learn Obj-C 1.0 thoroughly before dipping into the new features of 2.0.
If you're learning Objective-C to go the Cocoa route, then I've always thought Aaron Hillegass's book is great at teaching this.
gamera~. Yep, it is a good idea to know Objective-C 1.0 as it now known before doing Objective-C 2.0. This is not upon some perverse form of initiation into the programming language, but rather an understanding of what the properties in 2.0 and how the garbage collector runs.
If you say get a job in developing Cocoa apps, you will run across code written before Leopard. In this case, you will need a thorough understanding of how the NSAutoreleasePool works and how the retain-release mechanism functions. These are not difficult concepts, but they confuse programmers new to Objective-C, especially from languages like C# or Java.
Also, when writing apps on Leopard, developers may choose to ignore the garbage collector. They don't ignore it as they are trying to prove they don't need hand-holding, but rather the fact that they cannot rely on when the garbage collector will run. This can cause serious issues when performing rendering, e.g. Final Cut Pro. The developers want in this case to be in charge of allocating the memory and deallocating it themselves.
If you say get a job in developing Cocoa apps, you will run across code written before Leopard. In this case, you will need a thorough understanding of how the NSAutoreleasePool works and how the retain-release mechanism functions. These are not difficult concepts, but they confuse programmers new to Objective-C, especially from languages like C# or Java.
Also, when writing apps on Leopard, developers may choose to ignore the garbage collector. They don't ignore it as they are trying to prove they don't need hand-holding, but rather the fact that they cannot rely on when the garbage collector will run. This can cause serious issues when performing rendering, e.g. Final Cut Pro. The developers want in this case to be in charge of allocating the memory and deallocating it themselves.
Would starting out with Obj-C (using Kochan's book) be a good start for developing simple games? I'm looking to create a simple checkers style interface where players can move pieces only onto certain areas of a board according to a rules interface programmed into the app. Very simple 2D graphics, nothing flashy.
I should also mention that I started working through the Kochan book off and on over the past 2 weeks and some of the lessons seem so unrelated or abstract that I feel like I'm wasting my time. Should I just stick with it?
I should also mention that I started working through the Kochan book off and on over the past 2 weeks and some of the lessons seem so unrelated or abstract that I feel like I'm wasting my time. Should I just stick with it?
and I'd always suggest http://www.cocoalab.com... more specifically the "becomeanxcoder" tutorial there. It assumes you have no programming knowledge, and it will teach you enough C/ObjC/Cocoa to get started and be very hungry for more. It's slightly outdated, but the few differences are easy to figure out. When I finished that thing I was wishing desperately that there could be more. It was great.
Nate
Nate
Today I received my copy of Kochan's book from Amazon and already did 50 pages of it - so based on that I can wholeheartedly recommend it.
I am halfway through the "Learn Carbon with Objective C". I started with Cocoa and ObjC just few weeks ago, so every day I do an example or two from this book and I constantly browse for related extra information in "Cocoa in a Nutshell" and "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Hillegass.
When I was ordering "Programming in Objective-C" by Kochan I wasn't sure if I really need it but now I really am glad I bought it. Those other books teach you primarily Cocoa fundamentals. This book is about the language (and Foundation classes) and I really feel that I learned a lot from it today.
I am halfway through the "Learn Carbon with Objective C". I started with Cocoa and ObjC just few weeks ago, so every day I do an example or two from this book and I constantly browse for related extra information in "Cocoa in a Nutshell" and "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Hillegass.
When I was ordering "Programming in Objective-C" by Kochan I wasn't sure if I really need it but now I really am glad I bought it. Those other books teach you primarily Cocoa fundamentals. This book is about the language (and Foundation classes) and I really feel that I learned a lot from it today.