Cocoa Programming for Mac OS Xby Aaron Hillegass, , Search Cheap Books, Discount Books, ISBN 0321213149

Customer Reviews:

Cocoa Programming Can Save the World?

Though this book is clearly written and covers a broad range of introductory topics it fails and irritates in two areas.

1. It doesn't cover OO programming techniques. A new programer to OO will find the text confusing and possibly frustrating. C++ introductory books tend to have the same issue. I would recommend Design Patterns by Erich Gamma et. al to help with understanding how OO Design works.

2. The text is easy to read, but there are these sections that are patronising and unnecessary. The section on page 8 "How To Learn" and another page 55 on the morals of Lotteries just make me want to burn the book in defiance. I'm not interested in political comment in a programming book. Programming will not save the world!

I've also found that this book is too focused on screenshots and the XCODE 2.0 IDE, which means that it's dated and difficult if you are learning on XCODE 3.0

I've found "Programming in Objective-C" much better and this tied with Design Patterns book will get a new person up to speed quicker.

It comes highly recommended

This book has been said to be the definitive book for introduction to Cocoa development. I don't dispute this fact, however it's not the only good book on the topic. If you don't have any existing books, I'd highly recommend it.

I read "Learning Cocoa with Objective-C" (O'Reilly & Associates) prior to this and there isn't much difference between the two as far as content goes.

Great book

ransom22's review pretty much says it all. I've since supplemented this book with some of the O'Reilly books, and I'm awaiting delivery of Scott Anguish's "Cocoa Programming", but this is an excellent book with which to start the journey into Cocoa.

I Love This Book

When I first learned C (ten years ago) I learned from a book (which no longer published). In a year's time that book was dog-eared and ragged I referenced it so much. While I just received Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (2nd Edition) last week, I think my copy will suffer a similar fate.

This book is well-written, clean and lean. The approach to the subject is right on subject without a lot of fluff. If you want to learn Cocoa, this is the book.

2nd edition is even better than 1st!

Just because one is an expert at a given subject does not mean they make the best person to teach it. Aaron Hillegass is in a group of those few rare individuals who knows the subject and can help the reader to better understand it. His book is a well written and thought out tutorial that has been tested and refined by actual teaching conditions. If you haven't had the pleasure of attending Big Nerd Ranch then this is the next best thing. Don't think about it...just buy the book!

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