macOS Programming in Objective-C (3rd ed) released

[jiminaus]

It seems to have slipped past me, so just in case it slipped past anyone else, Kochan's 3rd edition of Programming in Objective-C has been released.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321711394

 

[larswik]

I guess I have no excuses in my case not to buy it.

-Lars

 

[balamw]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Sure you do... I don't think his style had changed.

My copy came a fee weeks ago and I haven't had a chance to crack it open yet. I need to get Lion and Xcode 4.x up first.

B

 

[larswik]

I have a fair understanding of Obj-C now. I get much of the concepts so I would get it at this point. I like to get my books as e-books for my iPad but the paper version is only $2, I think that is stupid. E books should be 1/3 cheaper of a free version when you buy the paper version. When you buy blue-ray disc's these days they come with a digital version too.

 

[balamw]

You know I'm just kidding, but at some level if you can't learn from someone it doesn't matter that you know more now you likely still won't find it engaging. Seriously, maybe waiting for the revised Hillegass (Cocoa) or Conway & Hillegass (iPhone) might be a better choice...

On pricing, it's very publisher dependent.

O'Reilly and Apress often have decent deals to add an e-book to a print version or to add a print version to an eBook or vice versa. Coupled with their daily deals ($10 M-Su @ Apress and generally 50% off at O'Reilly M-F) you can get some good books cheap and legal.

B

 

[PatrickCocoa]

Start Today!

I have a fair understanding of Obj-C now. I get much of the concepts so I would get it at this point. I like to get my books as e-books for my iPad but the paper version is only $2, I think that is stupid. E books should be 1/3 cheaper of a free version when you buy the paper version. When you buy blue-ray disc's these days they come with a digital version too.

You can start your own publishing company today, and set whatever prices you want for the items you publish. No need to incorporate or file any paperwork, just don't forget to pay personal income taxes on your revenue. You can find the names of people who write books about iPad fairly easily, call them up and offer them a deal.

In a few months or years you'll want to incorporate, so that you can get:
1. limited liability
2. taxed on your profit rather than your revenue.

Let me know if you want any more helpful advice on how to run your life!

 

[chown33]

You can start your own publishing company today, and set whatever prices you want for the items you publish. No need to incorporate or file any paperwork, just don't forget to pay personal income taxes on your revenue. You can find the names of people who write books about iPad fairly easily, call them up and offer them a deal.

In a few months or years you'll want to incorporate, so that you can get:
1. limited liability
2. taxed on your profit rather than your revenue.

Off-topic warning...

In the USA, AFAIK personal Federal income tax is only paid on profits (net income), not revenues (total income). I've been a self-employed sole proprietor for years, and have always deducted the costs of operating my business before paying Federal income taxes. Costs includes equipment, services, and payouts to other businesses. It included royalty pymts in some years, on which I was not taxed.

Same thing for my state income taxes, though I can't speak to what any other state might do.

I can think of reasons for incorporating, such as different tax schedules than personal sole-proprietor, but doing so to avoid being taxed on total revenues isn't one of them.

 

[GorillaPaws]

I don't think his style had changed.

Sadly, it seems he's adopted dot syntax. This is a real shame because I think all new Objective-C programmers should use the messaging syntax at first. Later, once they've mastered the concepts of message sending, data encapsulation via accessors, and they've decided they want to pollute their code with ambuguity by using dots for both accessing members of structs and properties of objects, then they can go ahead and make that decision. For someone just trying to understand the very basic concepts, I think dot-syntax is a big mistake. It leads to errors where the person erroneously believes he understands something, which is a much worse situation than when he knows he doesn't understand something.

 

[larswik]

PatrickCocoa - I do understand. But it's like the new car I bought a few months ago, I bought the car and they threw in a full tank of gas for me. Same way I feel if I buy the printed version of the book they should throw in the ebook as well, or for an extra .99 cents of something cheap to cover the conversion to the ebook. The ebook in this case was only about $2 less then the printed version. I saw no deal if you bought them both.

Like Chown33 I also am self employed and write off everything I can before I pay taxes. That is why during the slow time I can sit and learn Obj-C!

 

[skochan]

Sadly, it seems he's adopted dot syntax. This is a real shame because I think all new Objective-C programmers should use the messaging syntax at first. Later, once they've mastered the concepts of message sending, data encapsulation via accessors, and they've decided they want to pollute their code with ambuguity by using dots for both accessing members of structs and properties of objects, then they can go ahead and make that decision. For someone just trying to understand the very basic concepts, I think dot-syntax is a big mistake. It leads to errors where the person erroneously believes he understands something, which is a much worse situation than when he knows he doesn't understand something.

Actually, I've been using the dot syntax since the 2nd edition of my book (about 2 1/2 years ago). You have an interesting and valid point about its use that I did in fact consider. However, since I really don't teach structures until Chapter 13 (Underlying C Language Features) and, even then, suggest the readers skip that chapter and come back to it later as needed, I don't see where confusion would arise. By that time in the text the reader will have a good understanding of accessors (I do teach using standard messaging syntax first before introducing properties and the dot operator). Further, for beginning Obj-C programmers, structures come up in just a few places (e.g., NSRange, CGRect, CGPoint, CGSize). By that time the reader should be able to understand the concepts well enough to make the distinction between a property and a structure member reference.

I find the use of a single name to get/set an instance variable through a property and the convenience of the syntax outweigh the potential confusion of the use of the dot operator. In fact, I've yet to get a question posted to my forum by a reader owing to any sort of confusion.

Cheers,

Steve Kochan