Programming in Objective-C 2.0 (2nd Edition) at Dominant Systems Book Store

"This book spends half the time talking about the Objective-C language itself and half the time talking about Apple's Foundation and Cocoa frameworks. The chapters are well organized and concepts are well explained, so you end up with a solid foundation in the language. It's an easy read even with very little programming experience. The book doesn't cover Cocoa or the other higher level frameworks, but you'll be completely ready to pick it up by the time you're done with this book."

Customer Reviews & Comments
This book is both comprehensive and easy to understand. The sequence of chapters chosen to be read chronologically is well thought out (e.g. having the reader use static data types before introducing the generic id type, or having the reader declare and implement accessor methods before introducing the property and synthesize directives). The end of chapter exercises are also short (i.e. quick to complete) but also thoughtfully designed. The author chose to make this book serve not only as a reference, but as a tutorial. In other words, a bit like the "... for Dummies" series in its hand-holding (i.e. tutorial) style. However, this book is certainly not for "dummies" as the author does not assume the reader to be slow or requiring interjections of humor or casualness. Other books will have authors write things like "Now grab a slice of pizza before we hit this really hard subject!", but this author thankfully spares the reader of this. Kochan is concise and direct. There are very few wasted or unnecessary sentences. Kochan 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. If you do not have experience with ANY other language, then you will still have a difficult time with learning all of the Objective-C language as some topics just by their very nature are difficult to grasp immediately without practical experience. Although there is a chapter each on the Cocoa framework and iPhone development, this book is focused on the Objective-C language and Apple's Foundation framework. Other resources will have to be utilized to learn Cocoa or Cocoa Touch. BOOK'S 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 You may also want to consider reading Apple's developers' guides: -Learning Objective-C: A Primer -Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C -The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language Apple's guides are not easy for a novice, but having read them before reading Kochan's book definitely made using his book significantly easier and faster for me. In summary, 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.

Back To Top