I Need Help Learning Objective-c!!

You're going to have to learn to crawl (learn logic, write basic command-line C programs) before you are going to be able to run a marathon (submit an app to the AppStore). Make no mistake... if you are starting from ground zero having never programmed before it's going to take many months (and maybe over a year) to begin to get to the point where you can write real iPhone apps.

There are lots of threads in this forum from people asking the same question as you. Please feel free to read thorough them. There are no shortcuts to knowledge. It's going to take a lot of work.

 

http://guides.macrumors.com/Cocoa_FAQ

Read this first. I would pick a book and read through it, and we can help along the way. The Stanford iTunes U courses also seem well liked, so check those out. Along the way, come ask questions, we'll be glad to help. Write as much code as you can, and ask for critiques. Don't just do the exercises, tweak things about them. Enhance them. Understand what each line is doing, then challenge your understanding through experimentation. If there are local community colleges, see what they have to offer. See if there are any local groups that gather to talk code.

Good luck. Expect frustration. Don't give up.

-Lee

 

Before you learn Objective-C, you need to learn C.

I advise reading (and doing the exercises contained within) the free ebook Learn C the Hard Way:

http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/

Not every topic covered by that book is essential... the key things that you really should know before going any further are:

Variables
Operations
Functions
Control... the term escapes me right now... Control structures? The different loops and conditional stuff and whatnot...
Pointers
Arrays
Structures

... basically it's all covered in the first half of the book. Beyond that he gets into... well, algorithms and data structures like the title of the second half implies... it's not as important that you learn those because it seems like most of what he covers there you won't ever have to implement yourself because every API/SDK comes with them already...

 

I responded again to express how sad this makes me. Very sad. Understanding data structures is extremely important even if you never implement them yourself, because it's critical to know how to use them. And when. And why. And where. And a lot of what informs that is understanding algorithms.

Sorry, reading that put me into a mini-rage. It's over.

-Lee

 

It's not over until December 21st, right? Right? The ancient Mayan programmers computationists calendarists would be disappointed to learn their calculations were wrong.

 

This makes me sad. The Mayan calendar does not even end on the 21st, it is just a new baktun. Everyone we have known personally, so far, has been born and lived in the 12th baktun, 21 December only marks the beginning of baktun 13, which is in no way the end of the cycle, because Mayan cycles were based on 20s.

This baktun began two years after the death of Will Shakespeare and two years before the Mayflower landed on Cape Cod. A lot has transpired in this 396 year mini-epoch, we should celebrate (and fear) what number 13 will bring. Party down, folks.

(Yes, I know you were not serious, chown33.)

 

The Mayan's just ran out of stone

 

Try starting here: https://www.bignerdranch.com/index

Specifically here: https://www.bignerdranch.com/books

Purchase and read:
1) Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide
2) iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (3rd Edition)

This will get you off in the right direction, seriously. Anything else you purchase will probably frustrate you or sit on your shelf until you finally give up or get around to these books. Most books are created for classroom teaching where a genius type coding instructor fills in the little gaps that new programmers can get completely lost in. If you are learning on your own, you need a book that caters towards that. After you have developed a little base knowledge, then you can dive into whatever book you are interested in. You will know enough to decide if the book is useful or just crap; teaching the same old theory junk starting you off on completely useless exercises and wasting twenty pages on what an int is.

Good luck

PS I disagree with typical theory based learning. The nerd guys have pretty much figured out how to teach people to code. They teach what you need, when you need it and why. Start with the two above books, in either order, if you start with the second book, because you want to 'jump right in' and start to find yourself lost, go back to the first book until you catch up. There are many things in programming that will completely mess with your mind. Just think about for a second. How long would it take you to learn Chinese? After a couple of weeks, you'd be good enough to struggle through and order a meal and place to stay, but to hire a bunch of people to build a unique structure, like an airplane? That will take years of language understanding, not to mention probably increasing your skills in fluid dynamics, physics, math, ect.

 

I learned a lot of the basics by watching this guys YouTube videos.

 

Absolutely true, and that is a great objective C book, sitting on my shelf right now, actually. I guess I focused more on the final goal ( of app development ) and wanted to provide a consistent and structured framework for that purpose.

There just isn't enough space or time to right all the great books out there.