I've been looking around the web at various tutorials, and they either seem to be for people who already know C/C++ well, or those who know no programming language at all. I personally know PHP very well, and am still looking for something that can really take someone who knows PHP to knowing Obj-C Cocoa with out going through all the basic rubbish.
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macOS Learning Obj-C Cocoa
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Sadly you might miss out on something really important if you miss out on the 'basic rubbish'. I can see your point about not needing to know about 'what is a variable' level of tuition but stuff like retain counts is pretty crucial to cocoa / objective-c and is usually covered pretty early.
You may actually have to buy a book on the subject - Hillegass and Kochan both write very good books on the subject. The former is a cocoa book and Kochan's is an objective-C book.
You may actually have to buy a book on the subject - Hillegass and Kochan both write very good books on the subject. The former is a cocoa book and Kochan's is an objective-C book.
I'm not sure if I see the big problem in this. Obj-C is an extension of C so those who know C can skip some steps, so that's a natural starting point for some tutorials.
For others, everything must be covered because there's no way anyone can tailor tutorials for every single starting point.
Just skip the things you already know.
For others, everything must be covered because there's no way anyone can tailor tutorials for every single starting point.
Just skip the things you already know.
First of all, there is no such book that will introduce you straight to Obj-C Cocoa. Firstly, you must master Obj-C. Afterwards, you should buy a book that teaches Cocoa. One step at a time...
And the basic things are important to learn for anyone. Remember that even the most basic things can ruin your day if not handled properly. For example, in C++, references and pointers are among the basic things that everyone must learn. But many people screw them up, even proffessionals.
And the basic things are important to learn for anyone. Remember that even the most basic things can ruin your day if not handled properly. For example, in C++, references and pointers are among the basic things that everyone must learn. But many people screw them up, even proffessionals.
link92 said:
Unfortunately a tutorial for peoplle who know PHP would be quite a specialised one (once you've learned Cocoa it actually might be a good idea to write one yourself) and there are lots of features in C that would not be present in a web programming language such as PHP or Perl - so the only choice is to grit your teeth and work like a newbie
Um...I pretty sure PHP has variables?link92 said:
If you know PHP that well you should have a pretty solid base with which to learn C, and from there Objective-C. You can do some things in pure Objective C + Cocoa without knowing straight C first, but in my opinion you'd be at a severe disadvantage that way. It's been a long time since I've read a C tutorial book, so I can't recommend a good one, but there are a lot out there. Once you know the basics of C, I would continue into Objective C before starting with Cocoa, by reading Apple's Objective-C Programming Language and Programming in Objective-C by Stephan Kochan. Then you can move on to Apple's Cocoa documentation, most of which can be accessed directly from Xcode, and also check out O'Reilly's Mac DevCenter, Cocoa Dev Central, Cocoabuilder, CocoaDev, the Apple Cocoa Mailing List, Wil Shipley's Blog, and these Cocoa Bindings tutorials. There are a number of decent books on Cocoa specifically, but I would recommend starting with Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass.
I would strongly suggest starting from scratch with a C book. Even if it means at least skimming over the basics. As someone who learned C/C++ first and has recently done most of my coding in Perl, reading through the book again was one of the best things I could have done.