Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 27th Mar 2008 12:35 UTC, submitted by Philippe Mougin
Mac OS X "Become an Xcoder is a free little eBook we wrote to help beginners with no or little programming experience to start their journey into the world of Mac OS X development with Objective-C and Cocoa. I'm glad to announce that the book has been updated for Leopard and Xcode 3, thanks to the work of Alex Clarke."
Order by: Score:

Great ...
by inetman on Thu 27th Mar 2008 14:28 UTC
inetman
Member since:
2006-05-30

Book(Point blank).
Got me a nice overview over the object and messaging model.

RE: Great ...
by evangs on Thu 27th Mar 2008 16:54 UTC in reply to "Great ..."
evangs Member since:
2005-07-07

I found that ebook fairly useless. I guess it's useful for people who are completely new to programming. If you are an utter novice at programming, starting with Objective-C is not the best idea. On the other hand, if you are a programmer and want to learn Objective-C and the Cocoa framework, that book is too shallow and the pace is too slow.

Just read up on the documentation on Apple's website and you'll get started in no time.
Objective-C: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Objective...
Cocoa: http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/GettingStarted/GS_Cocoa...
Xcode: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/...
Interface Builder: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/...

If you're willing to spend money on a book, a very good book I'd recommend is Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321213149/bignerdranch-20) and Advanced Mac OS X Programming (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0974078514/bignerdranch-20)

RE[2]: Great ...
by tyrione on Thu 27th Mar 2008 17:51 UTC in reply to "RE: Great ..."
tyrione Member since:
2005-11-21

I found that ebook fairly useless. I guess it's useful for people who are completely new to programming. If you are an utter novice at programming, starting with Objective-C is not the best idea. On the other hand, if you are a programmer and want to learn Objective-C and the Cocoa framework, that book is too shallow and the pace is too slow.

Just read up on the documentation on Apple's website and you'll get started in no time.
Objective-C: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Objective...
Cocoa: http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/GettingStarted/GS_Cocoa...
Xcode: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/...
Interface Builder: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/...

If you're willing to spend money on a book, a very good book I'd recommend is Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321213149/bignerdranch-20) and Advanced Mac OS X Programming (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0974078514/bignerdranch-20)


And if you are on Linux and haven't yet added OS X, buy Stephen Kochan's Book, ``Programming in Objective-C.''

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Objective-C-Developers-Library-St...

RE[2]: Great ...
by apoclypse on Thu 27th Mar 2008 18:54 UTC in reply to "RE: Great ..."
apoclypse Member since:
2007-02-17

I found the book quite useful if you look at it froma novice perspective. I don't see a reason why a objective-c would be an issue if you are a beginner, most people started with just plain c, with no garbage collection.

I think the book does what it does well, which is to start a novice programmer off on the path to programming for their favorite platform.

RE[2]: Great ...
by inetman on Fri 28th Mar 2008 10:12 UTC in reply to "RE: Great ..."
inetman Member since:
2006-05-30

Many thanks for your recommendations.

I just liked the book as a short introduction into Objective-C, in case of learning OS X programming I'll do it as probably the most people do it: Understand the basics and start hacking, using every help google will find for me ;-)

I used to read the Apple guide to Objective-C and was coding their Currency Converter example but it didn't helped me a lot since the "["- brackets drove me crazy.

The beginner orientated explaination of the object / messaging model made me understand this after the first read.

And for this reason: Great book (for me ^^)

[brain learnStuff:@"Objective-C"] ;-P

Good starter book
by TownDrunk on Thu 27th Mar 2008 17:45 UTC
TownDrunk
Member since:
2005-11-28

I think this is a pretty good book for starters and I hope the he continues to improve it. The more people we can get to develop on the Mac or iPhone the better. This will lead to more available software in the future.