Cocoa Programming (how to)??

[VegetaPunk]

I am learning Visual Basic right now, required for Computer Information Systems Major, however I REALLY want to learn how to write programs in cocoa:

I dont know C or C++

if their is a book or books for beginners and up that would let me teach myself I would love to get the names or just a good way to learn.

Thanks for all of your help

 

[janey]

Re: Cocoa Programming (how to)??

first check out http://developer.apple.com
then try taking a look at C/C++/C# In A Nutshell, I like O'Reilly's books they're very informative.

 

[FattyMembrane]

as one who tried to start programming about 5 years ago but to this day never made it through his "learn c in 21 days book", i can offer you some advice. make sure that you have a good manual, i started with dave mark's "learn c on the macintosh" or something like that and it was horrible. the book was about 400 pages long and rather than covering important topics, like how to program, he just made a bunch of lame jokes. anyway, with that out of the way...
Step 1: learn c. there are free tutorials on www.howstuffworks.com, www.cprogramming.com and other places on the net, or you can lay down cash for a book, but the free'er (if that's a word) the better i say, as long as it does not completely suck (i've only paid for one programming book and it sucked).
Step 2: dont give up like i did. you have to understand that programming is really hard and that anyone who is teaching you how to program is a nerd who has been programming for a long time and has forgotten what it was like to be a newbie.
Step 3: read the documentation that came with the developer tools but dont worry if it does not make much sense. using apple's "intro to objective c" document to learn how to program is like learning how to fish with a cricket paddle. i'm pretty much at this stage right now and have heard nothing but good things about aaron hillegass's book "cocoa programming for mac osx". it will teach you objective c and how to use project/interface builder.
Step 4: dont give up like i did (again). i've given up on programming about four times because there are points at which you seem to hit a brick wall and the nerds all say "it's easy, just type some stuff like 'struct @|| my.ass(%void!)' and it's all done".
Step 5: check out some cocoa websites like www.cocoadevcentral.com and http://osx.hyperjeff.net/reference/CocoaArticles.php, then look for source code at places like http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/CocoaSource.html with which to tinker.
hopefully i too will join you in learning how to program, but as i've said, i'm not there yet, so i'm sure that others have some better information. i just thought i could share my experiences with trying to program to let you know not to give up

 

[janey]

Re: Cocoa Programming (how to)??

Originally posted by VegetaPunk
I am learning Visual Basic right now, required for Computer Information Systems Major, however I REALLY want to learn how to write programs in cocoa...

Visual Basic is a great start...i really shouldn't give you advice, as I learned how to program "naturally" as i grew up with computers, both parents are programmers and i just have to read some manual on how to program in (name a language) to learn.

 

[VegetaPunk]

thanks for all of the help guys

 

[bousozoku]

FattyMembrane:

Sorry to hear that you got stuck with Dave Mark as so many have. He doesn't seem to know how to programme or write books. If you'd seen his C++ book, you'd swear he was learning C++ as he was writing it.

Also, try http://www.codewarrioru.com/

These are the people who sell CodeWarrior and their tutorials are quite good.

You could also ask specific questions here too.