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Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running: Foundations of Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch programming

Posted by Mila Coachman on Friday, 28 May 2010
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Great Price "Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running: Foundations of Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch programming" for $19.95 Today



Scott Stevenson's tutorials on Cocoa Dev Central have been an invaluable resource for new Cocoa developers for many years, with down to earth descriptions of the essential topics of Cocoa programming and the Objective-C language.

This book brings all that and so much more. It is certainly `the' Cocoa programmer's guide to getting up and running. Starting off with an essential setup guide, chapter two quickly jumps into code, with a great introduction to the C programming language and basic programming concepts that form the foundations of thinking in code. Covering the perfect amount of C, from the ground up the author discusses the basics of variables, functions, conditions and straight forward examples of a procedural application.

Chapter Three dives deeper into C discussing arrays, loops, pointers, primitive types, dynamic memory and more. Scott does a great job of introducing new concepts at a human level, making each new idea tangible. This is where his tutorials have always thrived, and these chapters are definitely where I wish that I could have started my journey into programming.

Chapter Four is where the fun really begins. Thinking in Objects. The author begins to introduce the conceptual foundations of object oriented programming, with clear-cut examples of designing objects. The following two chapters compose the best introduction to Objective-C that I have seen, covering everything from classes, syntax and memory management to dynamic language features like introspection and forwarding messages, interspersed with quintessential thoughts on object-oriented design.

The next chapter discusses the Foundation framework and its value classes, the lower level component of Cocoa. A subject that is often abstract comes through in tangible examples of working with objects and the real life data they represent. This chapter goes into detail discussing many of the value classes that you will use regularly developing Cocoa applications. Styled like a reference, but broken apart by relevant topics, you go through data objects, collection classes, mutability and more, and every class and topic comes with a healthy portion of code. The examples in this section are great.

Chapter Eight is like starting a new book. Titled Basic Controls, it jumps into the user interface level of application development and covers the basics of creating an interface and wiring it up to your code. There are a lot of new topics that go into connecting UI to code, and I think Scott does a great job here of peeling away the layers of the subject, using good examples that help you make sense of things quickly.

The next section was the most helpful to me, as a Cocoa developer with some experience but certainly not expertise, the discussion of Model-View-Controller design and the great sample application were just what I needed to be able to picture the beginning points of real applications in my mind.

I love the chapter on custom drawing, and the amount of coverage it has on the details of creating custom UI programmatically. The sample photo viewer app, with a nice shine drawn on the photo programmatically, cracks open a world of possibilities. And the section on refactoring view code is a true gem; this one part was my favorite.

The final word is a take away guide absolutely worth revisiting.
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Scott Stevenson has been an active member in the Mac developer community for many years, and has always been respected for his contributions through awesome tutorials on his website, focused on getting new beginners started, and great technical articles on his blog, ranging many topics relevant to writing software with Cocoa. I started with Scott's tutorials years ago, and have followed all of his material since, so I was really excited when this book was announced, and I can honestly say that it did not disappoint. It is the absolute best introduction to Cocoa programming with Objective-C, written by a true expert on the subject and one of the best teachers around.

Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running: Foundations of Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch programming Features

  • ISBN13: 9780596804794
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.



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Price : $34.99
Offer Price : $19.95





Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running: Foundations of Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch programming Overviews

Build solid applications for Mac OS X, iPhone, and iPod Touch, regardless of whether you have basic programming skills or years of programming experience. With this book, you'll learn how to use Apple's Cocoa framework and the Objective-C language through step-by-step tutorials, hands-on exercises, clear examples, and sound advice from a Cocoa expert.

Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running offers just enough theory to ground you, then shows you how to use Apple's rapid development tools -- Xcode and Interface Builder -- to develop Cocoa applications, manage user interaction, create great UIs, and more. You'll quickly gain the experience you need to develop sophisticated Apple software, whether you're somewhat new to programming or just new to this platform.

  • Get a quick hands-on tour of basic programming skills with the C language
  • Learn how to use Interface Builder to quickly design and prototype your application's user interface
  • Start using Objective-C by creating objects and learning memory management
  • Learn about the Model-View-Controller (MVC) method of sharing data between objects
  • Understand the Foundation value classes, Cocoa's robust API for storing common data types
  • Become familiar with Apple's graphics frameworks, and learn how to make custom views with AppKit


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Customer Review


Just alright - Stanley Siu - Jersey city, NJ USA
I read this book on Safari online both the rough cut version and the final version.
I do find the book very easy to read as I always enjoy Scott Stevenson's Theocacao blog and his articles on [...]


One thing is certain that this book is not targeted for non-beginner, as the title suggested. Its content is introductory and far too short with 11 chapters. Compared to other books like Cocoa Programming (Aaron Hillegass) which has 35 chapters, it is obvious that a lot of topics are left out. Don't expect advanced topics like Core Animation, Grand Central etc.

Now for up-and-coming Cocoa programmer, is it a good book?
I felt that on this regard, the author is too ambitious.
It is tough to cover Cocoa and Foundation Framework, let alone having to cram C, Objective-C, object-oriented principles and design pattern into it, it ends up only touching the surface on most topics.
And if the newcomer want to know what's the iPhone or iPad app all about, sorry there is none mentioned.
It seems that the author fails on meeting both ends that, either lets the reader to build a solid foundation or having them a tastes of Mac, iPhone programming on Cocoa.

Honestly I wonder why publishing companies in general don't release computer programming books in a series.
If I think of this book as Volume I out of Volume 5, it is a pretty good book. And progressing with the series gives the readers a sense of achievement too.





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