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macOS Best book to learn Cocoa and Objective C?

Best book to learn Cocoa and Objective C?

There are a number of good iPhone and Mac books from Apress. Learn Objective-C on the Mac by Mark Dalrymple and Scott Knaster is great and there are two other books in the pipeline - Learn Cocoa on the Mac and Learn Objective-C for Java Developers which I'm keen to release.
 
i'm currently learning c++ at college as part of my foundation degree (UK) but i'd like to look more into developing apps for mac, would i be okay to go straight to the Hillgrass book or should i still go with learning objective c first?
 
steezy1337 said:
i'm currently learning c++ at college as part of my foundation degree (UK) but i'd like to look more into developing apps for mac, would i be okay to go straight to the Hillgrass book or should i still go with learning objective c first?
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Try an online Objective-C tutorial. If you can pick up the language in a weekend, skip buying a book for it. If you can't pick it up, buy the book.

Any decent tutorial would work for this trial. E.g.:
http://cocoadevcentral.com/d/learn_objectivec/

Google for more.

Also use this as a reference:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/libr.../ObjectiveC/Introduction/introObjectiveC.html
 
chown33 said:
Try an online Objective-C tutorial. If you can pick up the language in a weekend, skip buying a book for it. If you can't pick it up, buy the book.

Any decent tutorial would work for this trial. E.g.:
http://cocoadevcentral.com/d/learn_objectivec/

Google for more.

Also use this as a reference:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/libr.../ObjectiveC/Introduction/introObjectiveC.html
Click to expand...

Another great resource is the free book "Become an Xcoder", available at http://www.cocoalab.com/?q=becomeanxcoder. That said, if you know C and have some idea of what C++ does, you can probably pick up enough Objective-C from the Hillegass book. Eventually you'll probably want the Kochan book to progress with the language, but these resources will get you to the point where you can dip your toes in Objective-C without getting them frozen off. :eek:
 
Hi all. I'm a n00b when it comes to programming, but I didn't want to start a new thread. Let me know if this is a good reading/learning course of action to take when it comes to books in order to make an iPhone app:


I plan to have that initial batch of learning done by June 2010. I'll still teach myself new stuff, but I'll have to see where I'm at with programming knowledge by that time. My main goal is to be able to make decent iPhone (and Apple Tablet) apps. Maybe a program for the Mac for them to sync to. That goal is set at January of 2011.

Do you think it's possible? Thanks again!

:apple:
 
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my plans are to develop apps for the iphone, i'm not concerned with apps for the mac so plan to purchase the following books:

Programming in Objective-C 2.0 - Kochan
Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK - Mark / LaMarche
Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X - Hillegass

Does this seem like a good set of books to start with? I'm not 100% about the Hillegas book as its name indicated its focused on Mac, not iPhone. Anyone got any experience of the book who can give me their view in relation to iPhone development?
 
djebby said:
my plans are to develop apps for the iphone, i'm not concerned with apps for the mac so plan to purchase the following books:

Programming in Objective-C 2.0 - Kochan
Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK - Mark / LaMarche
Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X - Hillegass

Does this seem like a good set of books to start with? I'm not 100% about the Hillegas book as its name indicated its focused on Mac, not iPhone. Anyone got any experience of the book who can give me their view in relation to iPhone development?
Click to expand...

Do you already have programming experience? If so, those books should work for you. If not, you're going to get confused with the Kochan book, I don't care what anyone tells you. It's a good book, but without some knowledge of programming, it won't stick or make enough sense.

Which area do you fall in?

:apple:
 
itsbarry said:
Do you already have programming experience? If so, those books should work for you. If not, you're going to get confused with the Kochan book, I don't care what anyone tells you. It's a good book, but without some knowledge of programming, it won't stick or make enough sense.

Which area do you fall in?

:apple:
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thanks for the reply...

yes i have around 7 years of oracle pl/sql and have minor exposure to C++, i think i'll go with those 3 books then, i already have the kochan one and find it fairly good going so far so will look at picking up the others also...my biggest challenge will be completely grasping all the aspects of OO but i'm sure with a bit of hard work it should all fall into place
 
itsbarry said:
Do you already have programming experience? If so, those books should work for you. If not, you're going to get confused with the Kochan book, I don't care what anyone tells you. It's a good book, but without some knowledge of programming, it won't stick or make enough sense.
Click to expand...

I went from essentially zero programming experience to having a decent grasp of the fundamentals from going the Kochan/Hillegass route. It's not easy by any means, but I think it's pretty doable.

One of the nice things about the Kochan book is that he doesn't assume you've mastered a subject just because he introduced it earlier. I realize that tutorials need to "build" on earlier concepts, but Kochan still takes the time to explain what's going on in the code even if it's a topic that was covered previously. This means that I never reached a part of the book where I couldn't follow what was going on.

I do think it's wise to supplement these resources with documentation, tutorials and other books. I found "Cocoa Design Patterns" to be a nice followup to Hillegass; it focuses on the theory and philosophy behind the various patterns and architectures in the Cocoa Frameworks, whereas Hillegass tries to focus on the more practical implementation details. Both approaches work well, but I would definitely suggest reading Hillegass first.
 
itsbarry said:
Do you already have programming experience? If so, those books should work for you. If not, you're going to get confused with the Kochan book, I don't care what anyone tells you. It's a good book, but without some knowledge of programming, it won't stick or make enough sense.

Which area do you fall in?

:apple:
Click to expand...

If someone doesnt have programming experience what do you suggest?
 
djebby said:
Does this seem like a good set of books to start with? I'm not 100% about the Hillegas book as its name indicated its focused on Mac, not iPhone. Anyone got any experience of the book who can give me their view in relation to iPhone development?
Click to expand...

I would recommend it because it will be a great introduction to the Objective-C libraries and especially Cocoa. You may want to get the other two and keep the Hillegas book as a fallback if you find yourself floundering.
 
softweyr said:
I would recommend it because it will be a great introduction to the Objective-C libraries and especially Cocoa. You may want to get the other two and keep the Hillegas book as a fallback if you find yourself floundering.
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thanks, i've ordered the 3 books, wish me luck on my journey :)
 
Hillegass Cocoa Programming and DeVoe Cocoa Touch

Very good thread...thank you everyone for the sage advice. I am new to iPhone application development. I have ordered the Objective C book and found the 2nd edition of the Hillegass book for 5 dollars. Do you think I can get away with the second edition or is it essential to have the newest version.

Has anyone picked up Cocoa Touch for iPhone OS3 and if so is it a helpful purchase?

Thank you!
 
Littleodie914 said:
And for Cocoa programming, the hands-down champ is Aaron Hillegass' "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X: Second Edition." :)
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Hello,
now there is a 3rd edition but it is from 2008. I would also like to read a book about Cocoa dev but I wonder if 2008 is not too old. Maybe the core ideas do not change but a lot of things are done via the interface builder which changes quite fast.
 
What's good today?

I have a background in programming though not C.

The last post on this thread was mid-2010.

What would folks recommend today as good book/video resources for learning Objective-C, Cocoa in preparation for building iphone/ipad applications.
 
ZipZap said:
What would folks recommend today as good book/video resources for learning Objective-C, Cocoa in preparation for building iphone/ipad applications.
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Tell us a bit more about your experience, and goals, as there may be resources that are particularly well tuned for your situation and needs.

The main recommendations remain the same:

Kochan and Hillegass remain the two most recommended books. Kochan will have a new edition later in the year.

The Stanford iTunes U course is an awesome, free video resource.

Personally, I also enjoyed Scott Stevenson's book from O'Reilly which collects and expands a bit on cocoadevcentral.com.

B
 
Hi, I've got a few years experience as a PL/SQL procedural language programmer but have been stymied by OO. I tried my hand at object oriented PHP - should have seen the stack of books I went through but to no avail.

Any suggestion for the first 2 books for someone really struggling in OO with absolutely no background in C or Java? Is there such a thing as a tutor that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to help when I get stuck?
 
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