Customer Reviews

Objective-C Pocket Reference

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have three different books for objective C programming, which by the way are very hard to find. This book, which was published just recently, is the best objective c book I have read yet.

Objective C is a great language for all platforms, not just the Mac OS, and this book leads you to it. It gives you both Cocoa and standard C information. If you are interested in learning Objective C, this is the book for you! It's inexpensive, small concise and packed with information.

O'Reilly's OBJECTIVE-C POCKET REFERENCE follows in its line of slim booklets designed for quick reference while at the computer. I found it a very helpful book.

While titled "a pocket reference", the book is not something that should be put on the shelf right away and merely consulted from time to time. For a beginning Objective-C programmer, reading the book straight-through can be very enlightening. The basics of Obj-C are easy to grasp, and an Obj-C beginner can immediately start constructing solid applications without knowing about categories, protocols, or root objects. But O'Reilly's book is the best place to start becoming familiar with these obscure topics that might just help one solve a particularly tricky problem.

I have only a few complaints about the book. One is that it talks about the #import preprocessor directive, but nowhere does it mention the advantages of using #ifndef guards. Another problem is that in some parts it is Cocoa-specific; I would have preferred that it concentrate on the OpenStep standard in general so that other OpenStep implementations might not be left out (but the book does occasionally mention GNUstep, which is great).

O'Reilly proves itself the best publisher for developers again with this book, and any Objective-C programmer should invest in it.

Andrew Duncan's Objective-C Pocket Reference is just the book that budding Cocoa programmers should have on their desk. It is well written, well indexed, and succinct enough to read in an evening if desired.

After reading it cover to cover, I think this will be a valuable resource for looking up any Objective-C related questions I have.

Note, you should have an understanding of C before trying to read this book. Also - it will probably make more sense to you if you already have some experience with Cocoa. This is a quick reference - probably not the best way to learn the language. However, the book contains a list at the end which recommends other books and websites which are more thorough.

I'd say it's well worth the cost.

Probably the best book to read to learn Objective-C, if Apple's PDF on the language is not enough for you. Covers Objective-C both from Cocoa and non-Cocoa perspectives. Try Apple's PDF first, and if it's not enough to let you jump into one of the Cocoa programming books (which all mostly assume knowledge of C and Objective-C), then this book is recommended.

As an advanced C++ programmer trying to pick up Objective-C (a weird freakin' language if you ask me), I found this little Pocket Reference to be invaluable. For one thing, its really small which I like -- who needs another tome to litter the bookshelves? I find that it is well written, I actually just started reading it from the beginning and found it to be pretty easy to follow. Finally I = [[NSString alloc] initWithString:@"Understand"]; the crazy formatting for Objective-C methods which just looked like jibberish to me at first. Believe me, after 20 years of programming I can usually understand languages that I've never touched before -- I really needed this book to help me get a handle on Objective-C and it did a commendable job.

Negatives: of course, this is not exactly comprehensive. Since I am also learning Cocoa, I would have liked a little more Cocoa material mixed in. I did find that the writing was at times a bit confusing when discusssing some of the more abstruse concepts of Objective-C. And, always, I like lots of real code examples -- perhaps that just isn't feasible in a book this compact.

Overall, this is a very good book for a newcomer to Objective-C. With this in one hand and Google in the other I can get by quite nicely as I write my iPhone Apps.

I'm attacking Objective-C from the perspective of a C# and former VB and Java developer, with some knowledge of C as well. I'm trying to actually read through the book as a fast jump-start into understanding the syntax, and although it does well for this, I found this book a bit frustrating at times. It leaves a few fundamental terms unexplained and then carries on using them as though the reader understands.

For example, what are namespaces in the context of Objective-C? In C#, they are simply explicitly declared container names. In Java, they are the same but also a file system hierarchy. In C, AFAIK, namespaces don't exist. But the book frequently says things like "classes are in the global namespace" and "categories are in their own namespace so they can have the same name as classes". What are namespaces in Obj-C? How on earth do you work with these namespaces??

Code examples from one to the next have nothing to do with the previous, so as you learn a new keyword, and you see a one-line syntax example, you have no other code to see it in context.. such as, hello, how on earth would I *use* that after invoking or declaring it?

It also failed to explain "field sections". One of the reasons I BOUGHT the book was because I didn't understand why some things are declared in braces in the interface declaration, and some things are not, but are still before @end. The book said nothing about these braces and what they're containing. It just said, oh hey, there's no semicolon after @end. (Over and over again, needlessly.) I only figured it out by inference--and am still not sure if I'm right--when I came across the "Category" sample code and where in sample code there's often an area in braces with fields there was instead the comment, "// No field section." Ah. So I guess whatever goes in braces is supposed to be fields.

The book is also obsolete. Objective-C 2.0 has since been released, and this book doesn't cover that. It's dated 2003.

So the book doesn't do a good job as a syntax tutorial like I hoped. But I'll admit that it came really, really close. If the book had these missing components, it would only be about 10-15% thicker I imagine, though, but I don't feel that there's any excuse as it's not just small, it's thin.

I have just about every book on Objective-C that you can find. Mainly because I love books. The two that I find most helpfull as a non-programmer who is self-teaching are this little gem and 'Programming in Objective-C'. What I like about this book is that it shows the basic form and structure used in ObjC with very little clutter. It is not a book to learn from so much as a book to distill concepts into managable bites. Armed with this book and Programming in Objective-C will get you well on your way to programming in C, ObjC, Cocoa, and GNUstep (which is mainly what I am learning). All the other books get you deeper in the quagmire, yet for the most part assume that you the knowledge covered in these two books. This is the 'Ah Ha, now I see!' book when you have basic knowledge and need to get right to the point. I sometimes forget to look here first, usually to my irritation. Just buy it.
Also note that I am a big fan of all the 'in a nutshell' books as secondary refferences.

Concise Objective-C reference but dated now. An updated version covering Objective C 2.0 would be beneficial.

I got this book for a friend who really enjoys programming and wanted to get more in depth with applications. He specifically had been asking for books about Objective C. I assumed this book would be a big help, since he already had a good handle on programming in a general sense. I was right to a point. He loves the book and is finding it very helpful and informational. It is most definitely a handy reference book to keep with you as an Objective C programmer. But it does not get into any of the finer details (as it shouldn't, being a pocket reference) and I did not consider that he did not already have a good grasp on that. So this is an excellent book to get for a person who already knows the basics of Objective C programming and just wants the quick reference points while they are working. According to my friend it is nearly perfect for that. I just missed the information he needed on some of the earlier info he wanted. Happy Shopping!

It is very good & convenience pocket reference book for Objective-C programming particular for new Objective-C programmer.