Customer Reviews

Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This was the book I had been waiting for, or at least ONE OF the books I had been waiting for, to really get started with Cocoa programming. The O'Reilly book, as has been mentioned plenty of times here, leaves a lot to be desired, and while it was better than nothing, a wall still remained between me and Cocoa after finishing it.

After reading Cocoa Programming for OS X, I feel I can say I "get" Cocoa finally. That's not to say I'm an expert, but that I can complete a simple program now, on my own, using the Cocoa frameworks and concepts. As Aaron says in the book, learing the Cocoa APIs will take much longer. I come from a Java background, with only marginal C and C++ experience. Although Aaron does not speak much about the objective-c language itself, that's ok. Apple's PDF is more than adequate to get that background.

There are some things that get glossed over that I wish had been more fully explained, and some things left out altogether that I would have liked to see, such as:

-- Spawning and managing multiple threads, thread safety issues

-- exception handling, debugging and assertions

-- Cocoa "primitive" objects (NSPoint, NSRect, NSRange, etc.), why they apparently don't need to be retained or released, and why they are "NS" objects but don't really behave like them.

-- Calling Toolbox routines or those from APIs that have not yet been "Cocoa-ized" (and integrating the Old Way into the Cocoa Way), with examples. Cocoa is nice but once you get away from building a text editor, you will need to dig into this ugly and unfriendly world at some point (unfortunately). For instance, how do I access the Airport card, how do I open and use a network socket, how can I read a DV-encoded stream from a FireWirePort and save it to disk as a QuickTime movie, how do I access a database, how do I use an OpenGL view?

-- How to customize Cocoa UI elements. Like if I wanted an NSSlider with TWO sliders, a minimum and a maximum. There is an example of subclassing an NSView in the book, but that's just a drawing panel.

To be fair, I'm not really criticizing Aaron for these things. The book has plenty of useful stuff, and I'm sure Aaron wants to write and sell more books, so some advanced Cocoa books that address some of these things as well as others will be welcome...I hope someone is writing them right now. I also hope someone is writing a comprehensive Cocoa API reference, as Apple's is somewhat lacking (Have you seen the phrase "Description Forthcoming" more times than you care to remember? I thought so.)

The bottom line is that this is a great book that is a must-have for anyone interested in Cocoa programming. I'd probably rate it four or four-and-a-half stars, but I'm giving it five for being there when I needed it, and being the first really useful book on the subject. The best thing I can say about it is that I can now do things there is simply no way I could have before.

First my background. I'm a very experienced C++ programmer who is also very experienced with Carbon.

I found this book to be a great intro to Cocoa without a lot of preaching about how Cocoa will change the world. Carbon vs. Cocoa seems to be an almost religous debate, and I'm glad this book didn't try to overpromise the benefits of Cocoa.

The book is well organized, very readable, and has good examples. It is *much* better than the O'Reilly "Learning Cocoa" book.

After reading this book, you'll be able to start writing applications in Cocoa, and you'll know where to go for more info.

Now, my nits:

* The book explicitly stated that it was for people with a C++ or java background, but I think there should have been more direct comparisions between C++/java and Objective C. For example, saying that class functions (the ones with +) are just like static functions in C++ would have helped.

* This may be an introductory book for people moving from other platforms to the Mac, but the UI for most of the applications violated Apple's UI guidelines in many ways. I think the book should have promoted following Apple's UI guidelines.

* There was no discussion of exceptions, and much of the code was not exception-safe and didn't do much error checking. There wasn't even the usual disclaimer about leaving that out for simplicity.

* I would have liked a quick overview at the end of some of the classes not discussed in the book with a couple of sentences about what they do. This would help to learn what's out there.

I hope to see more books on Cocoa by the author. There's still lots of room for books on more advanced Cocoa topics.

here's what i discovered while i was trying to learn Cocoa: this book, by itself, was not sufficient for me to really "get off the ground" with Cocoa. Now, don't get me wrong, this really is a good book and, in most areas, Mr. Hillegass explains the material quite well. my problem was that after i had worked --perhaps struggled would be a better description -- through the first 4 chapters of the book i was still left feeling somewhat confused about how to go about writing a Cocoa progam. for some reason things just weren't "clicking" as well as i thought they should be.

not being the quitting type, i began to search for other books on Cocoa programming. i purchased the O'Reilly book "Learning Cocoa With Objective-C", second edition. after reading a few chapters in the O'Reilly book, then going back and re-reading the material in Mr. Hillegass' book, things began to click. since that time, the approach has proven the most useful for me is to read the O'Reilly book until i get stuck on a particular topic, then cross-reference with Mr. Hillegass' book in order to get a different perspective/explanation. in addition, working through *all* of the examples in both books has proven tremendously helpful. if i had my way, i'd combine the material from both books into a single book. :)

in summary, if you buy this book and find that you are having trouble grasping the concepts, try purchasing the "Learning Cocoa with Objective-C" -- make sure to get the 2nd edition -- and see if getting a different perspective/explanation works for you.

Simply the best book for learning OS X Cocoa programing on the market today. Written in a chatty, easy to read style with lots of pictures by a bloke that knows what he's talking about. Much easier to read than "Learning Cocoa" from Apple.

Working through the books chapters and accompanying programming challenges you actually learn and understand step-by-step. You will quickly have your own OS X programs up and running based on the examples in the book.

A great starting place for new Cocoa programmers.

Four stars not five because there are a few errors in the printing that I have - however the BigNerdRanch web site has all corrections online.

Before reading this book, I highly recommend you read the "Object-Oriented Programming and the Objective C Language" document from [...] Forcing myself through the concentrated, dry spec made it easier to understand, enjoy, and appreciate Mr. Hillegass' wonderful explanations.

My favorite aspect of this book is that the author gets you into writing sample apps right away. After the 3rd chapter I felt like I knew the tools and environment well enough to write a very simple Cocoa app (like beginning programming excersize type things). I love how he takes you through the tools and shows you how to use them in the context of writing the sample program. When he explains concepts I feel like he does a very good job of giving concrete examples of when you would use such concepts in code.

The author's writing style felt like he was talking or lecturing to me, but without making me feel like a little kid.

This book is NOT for you if you do NOT have any background in Object-Oriented Programming or if you do NOT have any background in C or C++ (you need to understand pointers and memory management in order to learn ObjC from this reference).

Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X is a GREAT way to learn the basics of programming Mac OS X! I've been a Mac user since 1988, but have always been terrified of programming it. Instead I'd gone the evil route and programmed Delphi for Windows. NO MORE. I'm excited about programming my Macs!

THE BAD
The title is probably a misnomer, which is causing a lot of the negative feedback here. "Complete Introduction to the Power Of Cocoa" would have been more appropriate. This book isn't any type of reference book. Nor is it a text on programming philosophy. Nor is it a "Learn Objective-C" manual. And it's not a comprehensive "learn everything about Cocoa" book. My positive remarks about these perceived liabilities are in "THE GOOD" paragraphs below.

There ARE some typos in the book, but no real errors in the code that I've discovered. In many chapters, you're adding to a program you've built from an earlier chapter. On two or three occasions, variable names in the "new" chapter are different from the "old" chapter. But when doing the build, it became quite obvious and wasn't really much of an impediment -- if you can't follow the program flow and detect the problem by time you reach these chapters, you probably rushed or shouldn't be programming! Still, though, it IS a legitimate "bug" in the book.

It's probaby useful that you know something about object-oriented programming. I don't mean knowing C or C++ or Objective-C -- just know a little about object-oriented concepts. Chances are, if you're a modern programmer, you already know enough to make this "bad" point meaningless. If you're a very advanced object-oriented programmer, you may want to FORGET some of what you know to appreciate the pure simplicity of the Objective-C/Cocoa object model!

THE GOOD
It's an in-depth introduction to programming Cocoa in Objective-C. It will get you excited. It will spark your imagination as you work through the example code. You will want to learn Cocoa and forget everything else.

If you know programming in general, you probably DON'T need to know C or C++ or even Objective-C prior to working with this book. I came to it with an Object Pascal background with no working knowledge of C. If you can THINK then you can pick up Objective-C as you work through the book. It's REALLY very simple, even in comparison to Object Pascal.

The book is very well supported on the website. There's even a page-search function with errata and user-feedback in case you get in trouble. I've used it for help with a couple of the chapter "challenges."

RECOMMENDATIIONS
Buy this book, and work through it, and try the challenges. You'll often HAVE TO work through the Cocoa documentation to do the challenges, but this is good because you'll need to learn how to use the documentation to do any serious work.

When you're done with the book, you'll be confident and thrilled, and be ready to buy a true reference book (which I'm just getting ready to do!).

This book is an excellent introduction to Cocoa. It is basically what "Learning Cocoa" should have been. It is clearly not the only Cocoa book that you will want, but it will get you to the point that you can read and use other sources. The examples are well chosen and build up incrementally, so you can clearly see that code that is associated with new features as you add them. The book does get to full-up applications, but only simple ones. In this sense, I think this book joins nicely with "Cocoa Programming" or "Building Cocoa Applications". This book does the introductory and tutorial build up better than the other books, I think, although in less detail, and then you can go on to more elaborate applications elsewhere.

The book presumes knowledge of C and the rudiments of object-oriented programming. You can get this as go, from Apple's "The Objective C Programming Language" but you'll need to go slower and be prepared for some puzzles along the way. Also, you really need only minimal knowledge of C, mainly understanding of pointers, to work through the examples in the book.

There are a few weaknesses in the book. The description of the tools, Interface Builder and Project Builder, is sparse, and the book is now a bit out of date with the current incarnation of the tools that Apple is actually shipping. The differences are minor, but can sometimes be perplexing for beginners. Also, the tools (IB in particular) can be set up in various window "modes" that totally change the layout of parts of the tool. This isn't mentioned here, or in any other Cocoa book I've seen.

These however, are minor quibbles in an excellent introduction to Cocoa programming. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to start programming under Mac OS X.

I was halfway through the O'Reilly book on this topic, and just stopped when I started the Hillegass book. (And my opinion of O'Reilly books is generally very high.) His experience as a teacher really shows. Each time a question arises in my mind, he answers it in the next paragraph. Perfectly targeted for the experienced programmer who simply doesn't know the Cocoa framework. Pretty hard to improve on this book.

I actually carry this book with me to and from work. I have found it essential in getting up to speed in Cocoa programming quickly (I had a Java background). Apple's documentation and examples leave much to be desired, and this book fills the gaps.

All of the code snippets are easily reused (like the printing example), which allows me to concentrate on the more important aspects of my application's logic. Each chapter introduces a new topic, most of which build on previous examples. I don't think I can praise the book enough for it's value.

I was fortunate to learn from Aaron personally at the Big Nerd Ranch. If you can't make the pilgrimage to the BNR, this book is the next best thing.

This book is the essential book for learning Cocoa. While it doesn't cover Objective-C in detail, the small chapter that does cover it shines light on key aspects of the language that is just too hard to pick up from Apple's online documentation or the O'Reilly Cocoa books. Also, this book demystifies Project Builer and Interface builder. This allows the reader to absorb the Cocoa APIs and patterns without wondering how the tools work or what the icons mean. This book doesn't cover advanced topics such as threading or advanced graphics, but it is essential to get started in Cocoa programming. I can only hope that the author publishes a second volume on more advances techniques and perhaps even a WebObjects book.