Good Resources for Objective C Programming, Cocoa, XCode 3, etc.

I'm just looking to learn application development for osx using xcode. apparently xcode is "the way" real programming is done for the mac platform.

i could hopefully distribute applications to powerpc, intel, and arm (iphone / ipod touch).

so i'm just looking for good resources to help me though this. i know some basic coding concepts, i have taken java and Matlab courses, but I don't know anything about C programming in particular, or objective C.

I really like hands on tutorials. I'm looking for books, literature, websites, whatever. I just want it to guide me through the process of creation, instead of strictly talking about concepts. It also needs to be up to date, for obvious reasons.

Anyone know of anything in particular? Thanks in advance.

 

this is definitely the place to start, you main to to register for a free ADC account to view it:

http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000943

lots of example code, which is usually the best way to learn.

I also highly recommend starting with learning a little bit about Applescript of you have not already, it is a very easy way to get into basic programming and gives you a lot of interesting tools that you can build yourself.

I am sure you have seen some of the little applets I have built in some of the GUI customization threads here and there. and that is just scratching the service.

the big difference between Applescript and getting into Objective C, Cocoa, and XCode, is that the latter 3 are really for building Apps with a frontend, a UI that does something accesses data, etc. Applescript is great for building things that can do things quickly in the background, kind of like automator without ever dealing with the UI, plus a lot more power.

I will try to post up some more recources when possible, and definitely post up any you find as well, as I am interested in learning a little bit mroe myself.

definitely search around as well, google, youtube even. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wekDYuZKoZ0

good luck!

 

thanks! double rep.

 

At one point I was interested in doing some OS X programming too, but that's kind of one the backburner for now, while I'm doing VBA related stuff. So I'm kind of interested to see what people say too.

What I do know is that the definitive guide to Cocoa is "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Aaron Hillegass.

http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/detail.asp?item=100000000255291

It's now in 3rd edition, updated for Leopard. I believe the book assumes that you have familiarity with C++ or Objective-C already though since it teaches more about the API than the language.

One of the things about Mac programming books is that it seems to come in waves. There were a lot of books on Objective-C, Carbon, and Cocoa when OS X was first released, but those are kind of outdated now that XCode was released in Panther and all the Core APIs in Tiger. Tiger and Leopard seem to have returned interest in Mac programming though, so a second wave of books seems to be arriving now.

For learning C or Objective-C on Mac with XCode, I got the guides on this site recommended to me:

http://www.spiderworks.com/books/learnobjc.php

But, I never got around to trying them in the end, but they are relatively cheap in eBook form.

One thing I do recommend as a quick intro to Xcode, Objective-C, and Cocoa is Become An Xcoder. It's available in multiple languages, for Leopard and Tiger, and best of all it's free.

http://www.cocoalab.com/?q=becomeanxcoder

 

ok i got two apple documents:

"become an xcoder" and "the objective c 2.0 programming language"

i also got aaron hillegass's book, which i will read third.

the only thing i'm worried about with the spider works thing is that its outdated. it's 5 years old now and everything is moving fast in computer land. still- i took your suggestion on aaron hillegass. i looked him up on amazon and he got a lot of good reviews. thanks! rep+

 

Objective-C 2.0
Programming in Objective-C 2.0 (2nd Edition)

The API
Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (3rd Edition)

I'm not sure about any ' good' books on Xcode besides Apples ADC Library.

 

is it just me, or is objective c VERY unintuitive? I have no issue with C, Java, Python, PHP, etc, but I just can't wrap my head around objective c (either version).