macOS Interested in Programming apps for Mac

[seong]

I'm a Freshmen in High school right now, and I want to program applications for Mac.
I've learned Ruby only, and planning to learn C, C++, and Java as the time goes on.
Any suggestions for a good way to lead me to programming "path"?
Just planning to make basic apps, not really "professional" stuff.
Just really need some advice on which to start from. Xcode? Java first or C first?

 

[robbieduncan]

If you want to write Mac Applications then you really want to learn Objective-C, not Java or C++.

 

[dantherevelator]

Objective C is best but not essential. Don't bother with Java. C++ and Ruby, though, are worthwhile.

There's a pretty full-featured Ruby-Cocoa bridge, you should be able to get somewhere fairly quickly.

http://pragprog.com/titles/bmrc/programming-cocoa-with-ruby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RubyCocoa

 

[lloyddean]

Objective C is best but not essential.

At this stage in the life of the Macintosh I 'd highly disagree with this statement!

 

[cube]

http://www.teach-scheme.org/

 

[gnasher729]

I'm a Freshmen in High school right now, and I want to program applications for Mac.
I've learned Ruby only, and planning to learn C, C++, and Java as the time goes on.
Any suggestions for a good way to lead me to programming "path"?
Just planning to make basic apps, not really "professional" stuff.
Just really need some advice on which to start from. Xcode? Java first or C first?

To develop software professionaly, you need to learn programming, you need to learn object-oriented programming, you will need to learn libraries relevant to the development target, and you will need to learn all the organisational things.

Learning C and C++ is not a bad start (or just learning C++ but also learning what the boundaries between C and C++ are), if you use that to learn programming and object oriented programming. Anyone who is reasonably good at C++ should learn Objective-C in a week. Objective-C without the C basis gets people into trouble; we see lots of posters here who operate somehow blindly because they lack the foundation.

To develop applications for MacOS X and iOS you will eventually have to learn Cocoa, which is the libraries that all of MacOS X and iOS is based on. These don't have to come first.

 

[seong]

Thanks everyone who replied to my post!
I just ordered C and C++ from Amazon thanks to you guys!
As some of you have said, I'll learn C and C++ for now, and see if I'll go to OS X or iOS.
Very noob question: Should I learn only from the book or videos+guids+books?

 

[miles01110]

Very noob question: Should I learn only from the book or videos+guids+books?

How is anyone supposed to know? Learn from the sources and in the way you learn best. Duh?

 

[gnasher729]

Very noob question: Should I learn only from the book or videos+guids+books?

That depends entirely on you. All I know is that different people learn in different ways (and teachers who have never been told this often think someone is stupid because that person doesn't learn the way they are teaching).