I’m hoping that maybe someone here can point me towards a good book or online primer on Objective-C and/or Cocoa, if such a thing exists.

While I’m very familiar with Mac OS X, and I understand basic programming concepts, I’m trying to learn how to code for Mac OS X, and I’m having a slow-go at it.

I’ve been reading Beginning Mac OS X Programming, from Wrox publishing, but it has more errors (only some of which are posted on their website) than I like, and it definitely doesn’t have enough basic examples and thorough explanation. It’s more like ‘Here’s a concept, here’s an example, here’s a brief explanation of how that all worked. Now, let’s move on!’ I end up re-reading everything a bunch of times, until it finally clicks - sorta’.

So, if anybody can point to any good references for alternative sources of Objective-C and Cocoa, I’d really appreciate it.

Re: Need a good book on beginning Objective-C/Cocoa

[quote author=“MOSiX Man”]So, if anybody can point to any good references for alternative sources of Objective-C and Cocoa, I’d really appreciate it.

The classic is Aaron Hillegass’s book Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X .  Unfortunately it is getting a little out of date, I don’t know if there are any good books out that have Leopards new APIs.  The third edition of Aaron’s book should be out next spring and it will include Leopard.

MOSiX Man - 17 October 2007 09:31 AM

I’m hoping that maybe someone here can point me towards a good book or online primer on Objective-C and/or Cocoa, if such a thing exists.

While I’m very familiar with Mac OS X, and I understand basic programming concepts, I’m trying to learn how to code for Mac OS X, and I’m having a slow-go at it.

I’ve been reading Beginning Mac OS X Programming, from Wrox publishing, but it has more errors (only some of which are posted on their website) than I like, and it definitely doesn’t have enough basic examples and thorough explanation. It’s more like ‘Here’s a concept, here’s an example, here’s a brief explanation of how that all worked. Now, let’s move on!’ I end up re-reading everything a bunch of times, until it finally clicks - sorta’.

So, if anybody can point to any good references for alternative sources of Objective-C and Cocoa, I’d really appreciate it.

I am currently on the same road.  I was trained under programatic language Pascal, Algol, Basic so had no object experience.  I have bought three text,  Hillegass which I would recommend, Kochan Programming in Objective C which provides a good foundation, but is not Apple specific and Erica Sadun the Iphone developer cookbook which I just purchased.  If   your target is OSX then the Hilegrass is a great read.

I’m also using the Aaron Hillegrass book and it is good but not great.  It is showing it’s age, many of the tutorials in the book can no longer be completed with the current X-Code tools in the way that he expresses them—and unfortunately this is one of the hardest parts of XCode programming; so it is slow going.  I’m also using “The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook” to get some information and it works well but is a little bit intimidating for beginners.

I’m not sure if it would be harder to jump into X-Code programming without knowing the Microsoft versions or if you have the MS background.  I say this because they are quite different, so it may be easier to start with XCode and never look at the MS stuff.  There are pros and cons of each; at first the XCode stuff just looked and felt so weird that I was put off; but over time it is growing on me and I’m starting to enjoy it more. 

There are some good tutorials online for learning how to use X-Code tools and for programming.  The Apple’s Developer’s network is quite excellent and there are some amazing tutorials there.  I think this is one of those, just do it type of things.  You’re not going to learn how to develop apps until you sit down and just do it.  It took me about a month now to start really getting “OK” at it.  My first iPhone application will be done today—it’s a total hack job but it is only being used as proof of concept to show our customers.  But it has really given me insight on how the tools and environment work. 

I feel that the iPhone may be a better starting point since there are a lot of sample apps out there, the API is a bit more streamed down and you can get somethings up and running quite quickly.  That will give you good experience with the API’s,the tools, and the structure of the language to get you ready for full-on OS-X development.

Good Luck.

I used the 2nd Edition of Kochan’s Programming in Objective-C and was happy with it.  I chose it because the only programming I had previously done was in assembler language, and I was thus not familiar with any object oriented language.  Kochan’s book had no such prerequisite.  The 2nd edition if for both OSX and iPhone.  He does not presume the use of x-code, so if you want to use gcc instead you can follow everything.  I bit the bullet and used x-code and interface builder.

Have you considered a online learning site like lynda.com? They have a very thorough iPhone SDK training class, it is about 7 hours and touches on all the basic of objective-C, etc… as well as a ton of other good courses.

Good Luck,
Christopher