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Title: Programming in Objective-C 2.0 (2nd Edition) (Developer's Library)
ISBN: 0321566157
Author:
Stephen G. Kochan
Publicate Date: 2009-01-08
Publish: 2009-01-08
List Price: $44.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $29.69
Amazon Merchant Price: $29.69
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Outstanding Beginner's Guide to Objective-C
I am not a computer programmer/developer/coder and do not work in any related industry. However, I wanted to learn how to program for the Apple Mac. The only language I already knew was BASIC.
This book is both comprehensive and easy to understand. It does not assume prior Objective-C, Cocoa framework, or X-code knowledge. However, if you have experience with just about any procedural or object-oriented language, you will have a much easier time with learning any new language, including Objective-C.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. Introduction
2. Programming in Objective-C
3. Classes, Objects, and methods
4. Data Types and Expressions
5. Program Looping
6. Making Decisions
7. More on Classes
8. Inheritance
9. Polymorphism, Dynamic Typing, and Dynamic Binding
10. More on variables and Data Types
11. Categories and Protocols
12. The Preprocessor
13. Underlying C Language Features
14. Introduction to the Foundation Framework Foundation Documentation
15. Numbers, Strings, and Collections
16. Working with Files
17. Memory Management
18. Copying Objects
19. Archiving
20. Introduction to Cocoa Framework Layers
21. Writing iPhone Applications
22. Appendix A. Glossary
23. Appendix B. Objective-C 2.0 Language Summary
24. Appendix C. Address Book Source Code
25. Appendix D. Resources
While waiting for the release of this book, I decided that it would be easier for me to learn Objective-C if I could try to learn some of it through online tutorials and guides. I went through online tutorials on Objective-C, as there are very good ones online.
I then read Apple's own free developer's guides (e.g. Learning Objective-C: A Primer, Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C, and The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language). Apple's guides are difficult for a novice, but it definitely made using Kochan's book significantly easier and faster for me. If you have experience with another object-oriented programming language, this book may not be necessary for you as I was able to learn about 80% of the book's contents through my online (free) studies and through help from online developers' forums.
This book will make learning Objective-C about as easy as it can be since it starts with the assumption that the reader has no prior programming knowledge.
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2: Sloppy typos but overall excellent
This book begins with a typo in the first program listing presented. My eyes blinked when I saw it. It's not a big deal - they just left out the beginning "<" in an #import line. There were a few more problems I noticed as I skimmed along through the first part of the book. A clumsy explanation of the size of data types made me blink again.
But does it matter? Were these little glitches serious enough to confuse a new reader? It's impossible for me to see this with fresh eyes - heck, I read my first C book nearly three decades ago and who knows how many other books I've read on C++ and other object oriented variants since then. I can skim a lot of this part.
I have to wonder how much of its intended audience will skimming along too. I can't imagine too many people with no prior exposure to object oriented C are going to pick this up for their first venture into Mac OS X programming. More likely they'll come from a background even deeper and stronger than mine and will be rushing through the first 300 pages even faster than I did: classes, check - good analogies, not over drawn, basic types, check, inheritance, polymorphism, check, check.. let's get to the OS X stuff!
Don't skim too fast though: this really is OS X stuff and the easy familiarity of having been through similar languages before could cause you to miss a thing or two. Just resign yourself to a little boredom and plod along.
As noted, the real meat starts about 300 pages in and consumes the rest of the book. And as I've surely noted elsewhere, I hate this stuff.
Oh, I don't mind object oriented C. That's cool. It's the long class names that make my eyes glaze over. There's also the regrettable fact that I don't like windowing interfaces - oh, I like using them (well, for some things, anyway), but I sure don't like writing programs for graphic displays. I'm stuck in character mode in the terminal. Windowing is rather necessary for a work like this but I drag my heels and clutch at anything handy to keep myself from being drawn in. Yeah, yeah: I have to get over this stuff. I know. But then I see "matr = [NSMutableString stringWithString: str1 ] and I get a headache.
Of course that's why this book encourages you to use XCode. Start typing NSMu and Xcode starts giving you possible completions. See, Tony, it's not that bad.. give it a chance!
Yeah, OK. I will. Kochan continues this part with practical examples - he really does do a good job with this and dives into the tasks typical to most any program. As much as I resist, he's a good teacher and a good writer. The typos in the first part of the book make me a little wary, but Xcode will surely get me by those if there are any.
So - looks like a keeper. Who knows, I may even grow to like programming this way. There's a scary thought!
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