Product Description

Take your coding skills to the next level with this extensive guide to Objective–C, the native programming language for developing sophisticated software applications for Mac OS X. Objective–C is a powerful, object–oriented extension of C, making this book the perfect follow–up to Dave Mark’s best–selling Learn C on the Mac, Mac OS X Edition. Whether you’re an experienced C programmer or you’re coming from a different language such as C++ or Java, leading Mac experts Mark Dalrymple and Scott Knaster show you how to harness the powers of Objective–C in your applications! * A complete course on the basics of Objective–C using Apple’s free Xcode tools * An introduction to object–oriented programming * Comprehensive coverage of inheritance, composition, object initialization, categories, protocols, memory management, and organizing source files * A brief tour of Cocoa’s Foundation framework and AppKit * A helpful “learning curve” guide for non–C developers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7934 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 3.00 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 350 pages

Customer Reviews

Not all there
I started off buying Beginning iPhone Development from the same publishers, Apress, and that told me I needed to already be familiar with Objective-C. Although I ploughed through it, by the end I realised there were many basic concepts of the language I was missing, and going through all the examples hadn't done much by osmosis to get them into my head. So I bought this book, thinking as it was from the same publisher, it would be the missing part of the jigsaw I needed to understand Obj-C. But no, right up front in this book it says you should have experience with a C-like programming language. WTF? Above the title, the book claims 'Everything you need to know to become an Objective-C guru', when clearly you need to learn another language first, only to un-learn the bits that have changed in Obj-C. And guess what - yes, Apress have the 'Learn C on the Mac' book too (but perhaps that also has a prequel you need to read), and it looks like the one after this before you should start eyeing up that iPhone app you want to write is 'Learn Cocoa on the Mac'. Even with Amazon discount, you're up to £100 before you can even start to look at some of the advanced stuff Apress have planned. I'm beginning to think Apress are the publishing equivalent of the Landmark Forum. There's always one more course you have to take before you can achieve that breakthrough.

Learn Objective-C on the Mac is a good solution if you are coming at it from a C background, but that's not what it says on the tin. If you really want a complete introduction to Objective-C that doesn't assume you've already learnt something else, then a better option is Programming in Objective-C, second edition, by Stephen G. Kochan. A much larger volume, it's true, as it weighs in at 600 pages compared to the Apress book's 337, but it turns out there aren't shortcuts to this.

Very good introduction to Objective-C
Ok, i found this book gave me a very good understanding of most of the areas that confuse programmers coming from other languages. Well written with some good examples. It is important to realize however, it is not for a complete programmer beginner. If you dont know what an iteration loop is, pointer and instance variables you probably want to start with something a bit simpler. Learning another c based language would be a good start.

Excellent book if you know other OOP languages
Learn Objective-C on the Mac (Learn Series)
I'm a Flex/Flash developer and wanted to learn to develop for iPhone. Already having a solid OOP background with Actionscripting 3.0, I found this book excellent to make the transition into programming for the iPhone in Objective-C. It's a quick but essential read to catch up with all the nuances of objective-c. Before this I read the apress book on Beginning iPhone Development (which also is very good) but reading this really filled in the gaps on what is going on.

If you already know how to program with OOP languages this will be a breeze to get through, but really provides you with the necessary knowledge to get into development in objective-c and understand code samples from the Apple developer site.