Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Developing for Dummies

Mykbibby

Mykbibby

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 1, 2007
559
161
Palm Springs, CA
This SDK announcement really inspired me today... the iPhone is unbelievable for this stuff, and I don't want to sit back and watch it fly, I want to write apps. Unfortunately, I don't have the faintest idea how. How do people get started writing apps? My ultimate goal will be to create apps in Xcode, so my question is where do I start if I don't know anything.

Thanks, hopefully some seasoned developers can help me get started!
 
Actually, I'm in the same boat too. After watching the Keynote today, I became really inspired to really want to develop for the iPhone... But I'm not exactly sure where to start.

Any seasoned developers have any tips on where to start? The most experience I have with anything coding related is HTML / CSS / and a bit of Flash's actionscript.
 
You need to start by learning Objective-C. You can probably get some books on it at the bookstore - or you could read the PDFs on the Apple iPhone Developer Center.

Really, learning any object-oriented programming language (C++ or Java are the major ones) would be a good start - they're all pretty similar.

Once you've done that, you can look at the examples on the iPhone Dev Center.

Be warned, though - this is not something you can pick up and be productive with in a weekend. It will take you a good several months to be able to produce an application of real value - perhaps longer. However, you can probably figure out whether you will enjoy it in a weekend or two. :)
 
avalys said:
You need to start by learning Objective-C. You can probably get some books on it at the bookstore - or you could read the PDFs on the Apple iPhone Developer Center.
Click to expand...

Do you know if any public colleges might offer a class in that? And if they do, does it matter whether its for windows or mac? Because I have no intention of writing apps for that terrible platform!
 
Mykbibby said:
Do you know if any public colleges might offer a class in that? And if they do, does it matter whether its for windows or mac? Because I have no intention of writing apps for that terrible platform!
Click to expand...

obj-C is basically just for mac. you can use it on windows, but not really
 
Mykbibby said:
Do you know if any public colleges might offer a class in that? And if they do, does it matter whether its for windows or mac? Because I have no intention of writing apps for that terrible platform!
Click to expand...

Objective C is like C/C++. There are TONS of books on C++ might want to start there.
 
Mykbibby said:
Do you know if any public colleges might offer a class in that?
Click to expand...

try computer science 1a
at least at saddleback college
i am taking it and its um... we are just writing programs write now by copying them. it been like a while in the class the 2 classes after this should be more intense
 
I am curious about this too. All I want to create is a simple application with a list of items in 4 or 5 folders, with a couple pictures and words when you click on them. It seems very simple, but I'm sure it's not. Off to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to get a book on C. Any suggestions of books (for complete beginners, who have basically no knowledge of programming) from anybody? Thanks!
 
Mykbibby said:
Possibly the title of this thread?
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah that could be a good one. I've had some pretty good luck with the for Dummies books. C for Dummies? I think that's the one.

Does anyone have any experience with this or other books?
 
I just bought Absolute Beginner's Guide to C (2nd edition) by Greg Perry. It is really helpful. Much moreso than the pdf I linked to. The pdf starts out very simple and clear, then all of a sudden I can't understand a word of it. This book by Perry is very clear for at least the first 50 pages or so (how far I've read)
 
There are some really good free videos on the iphone dev site I have been watching. I also bought Cocoa(R) Programming for Mac(R) OS X last week, and it is pretty good.

I have a background with C/C++ and Java development, but never a mac developer. Personally I DONT think advising folks to learn C/C++ is going to make them an iPhone developer. The iPhone libraries, tools and nuances of objective-c are just too different. C/C++ is a good foundation for development work - but dont expect to learn it, and then immediately be an iPhone dev guru. If you want that, learn obj-c, xcode, iPhone libs etc..

My .02
 
In addition to books and courses (of course), a great way to learn to develop is to have a project in mind.

Working towards a goal will keep you motivated. As you confront problems working towards that goal (ie adding the interface, doing network tasks), you'll learn new skills. Google is your friend.

Another poster mentioned that you're not going to learn Obj-C in a weekend which is very true especially if you have no coding experience.

But you can certainly learn to do things fairly quickly. That doesn't mean your code will be beautiful or extensible. I find the development process to actually be quite complicated since you're working with both the code and InterfaceBuilder. Lots of things to keep track of.

By the way, writing HTML and CSS has nothing to do with coding whatsoever. That's non-iterative markup.
 
It's really too bad that one of the things developers are apparently prohibited from creating, are other languages.

On WM phones, there are little BASICs and scripting languages that anyone can easily use. I can just see how an easy programming tool would be popular on the iPhone.

(A blog somewhere brought up the realization that Java falls into this group. How will Sun do it without running afoul of this rule? ) If they do put Java on the phone, I'd say that'll be a much easier language to learn than Objective-C.
 
I would not bother trying to learn plain C first as some people here have mentioned. I would start with an object oriented language like java or C#. It will help a lot when looking at objective-c examples to get your brain to wrap around the concept of objects and their importance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back