Message from Dean - May 8th 2007
I am currently testing out a new version of the APF Bridge Component - If you notice any errors within this demo store please drop me a line.
List Price: $44.99Price: $18.85 You Save: $26.14 (58%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.268
EAN: 9780201726831
Edition: 1st
ISBN: 0201726831
Label: Addison-Wesley Professional
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: December 03, 2001
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Studio: Addison-Wesley Professional
Alternate Versions: Click to Display
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
Suitable for anyone with a little C/C++ programming experience who wants to create software for the newest Mac platform, Cocoa Programming for Max OS X provides a slickly packaged and approachable tutorial that will get you started creating state-of-the-art Mac programs.
The smart presentation style and easy-to-understood code examples help make this text an excellent resource. (It also helps that Aaron Hillegass is a truly engaging writer.) He first explains how the legacy NeXTSTEP platform has evolved into Cocoa on the Mac OS X. Beginning with short examples illustrating the actual Cocoa tools in action, the author gets you started with simple programs for a random-number generator, a raise calculator, and other comprehensible examples. Rather than just listing APIs and classes, the emphasis is on hands-on Cocoa development. An early standout section provides a nice tour of essential Objective-C features you'll need to know to use Cocoa effectively.
This book covers the several dozen built-in Cocoa controls, from basic text and buttons to more advanced widgets (including lists and tables). Subsequent sections look at user interface design (using the Interface Builder to create nib files) and how to add programmatic processing behind the visual layout. Along the way, the author introduces coverage of essential Cocoa APIs for strings, arrays, and dictionaries. Later chapters look at saving and loading documents (and user defaults) and how to tap the powerful graphics abilities available in Cocoa. (Besides image and basic drawing, there are short sections on PDF support and printing.)
More advanced user interface features get their due by the end of the book, including cutting and pasting data through the Cocoa pasteboard and also adding drag-and-drop support. Final sections look at creating new controls for use with the Interface Builder palette, and, briefly, how to use Java with Cocoa (an option that the author doesn't necessarily recommend). Throughout this text, the author provides more advanced, challenging problems at the end of each chapter for the "more curious" reader. This approach keeps beginners from getting lost in the details of Cocoa development, but gives the more advanced reader something more to do.
While there are comparably fewer books on Mac OS X compared to other platforms, readers are lucky to have this one available. Anyone who wants to get onboard with Cocoa development will be well served by this title. It's a fine tutorial that earns high marks for its approachable, clear examples and an excellent presentation by an author who knows his stuff and, better yet, knows how to teach it to others. --Richard Dragan
Topics covered: Brief history of the Mac platform (from NeXTSTEP to Mac OS X), basic Cocoa development in Objective-C, using Project Builder and Interface Builder tools, tutorial to Objective-C (instances, variables, using classes, arrays and other containers, custom classes), the Objective-C debugger, basic Cocoa controls (building user interfaces), tables and data sources, event handling and delegates, archiving documents (encoding and decoding, saving and loading documents), Nib files, window panels, saving and retrieving user defaults (including using dictionary classes), notifications (observers and more on delegates), alert panels, localization (including string tables, a English and French example, the nibtool utility), custom views and drawing, drawing images and mouse events (plus coordinates systems and autoscrolling views), responders and keyboard events, fonts and strings (including attributed strings and PDF support), pasteboards and nil-targeted actions, using Objective-C categories (a code reuse feature), drag-and-drop support, timers, sheets and drawers, formatting strings, printing support, on-the-fly menu updating, text editing with text views, basic tutorial for using Java with Cocoa, and custom Interface Builder palettes (and inspectors).
Product Description:
Apple's Cocoa framework and tools are indispensable to every developer who wants to take full advantage of Mac OS X's features and performance, and get applications to market rapidly. However, Cocoa has a steep learning curve, and the official documentation leaves much to be desired. Now, Cocoa insider Aaron Hillegass presents the first start-to-finish guide for serious Cocoa development. In this book, Hillegass leverages his experience as the creator of the world's first independent Cocoa training course, anticipating the questions that real-world developers ask about Cocoa -- and offering deep insight into the design patterns that give Cocoa its extraordinary power and elegance. He begins with an overview of Cocoa's goals, capabilities, and toolset. Learn how to use Cocoa's Project Builder to track all of your application's diverse resources, edit code, and compile and run applications. Master the Cocoa Interface Builder: leverage the full capabilities of Mac OS X's breakthrough Aqua interface, then go beyond "windows and widgets" to create classes and edit their attributes.Hillegass gives experienced C and object-oriented developers all the skills they need to use Objective-C, the preferred language for Cocoa development. Coverage includes: custom views; responders and keyboard events; fonts and NSString; pasteboards; categories; compilation with the GNU C (gcc) compiler; debugging with the GNU debugger (gdb); and much more. The book includes extensive code examples; most in Objective-C, some in Java.
Average Rating: 
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The perfect kick-start. Does exactly what it says on the lid. I read it twice the first time without a screen in front of me and it gives a great overview of the fundamentals. Would give 6 stars if I could.
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This book is by-far the best book for learning Cocoa Programming and understanding why you doing what you are. The book is based on Aaron's years of working with and teaching Cocoa programming at NeXT, Apple and his company Big Nerd Ranch. Aaron keep's the book moving with small logically laid out chapters and leave out the superfluous B.S. that so many other authors insist on writing for days on. In my opinion Aaron's book isn't really intended for people with no object-oriented programming experience but if you have a decent amount of experience in a HL language such as C or Pascal you shouldn't have much of a problem picking up on the concepts. I would suggest reading an object-c book prior to working with this book only because object-c's syntax and library leaves some people scratching their heads. The only thing better than reading this book is taking Aarons 5 or 7 day Cocoa Boot camps from his company Big Nerd Ranch ( www.bignerdranch.com ). Both the book and the boot ... Read More
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I currently am a Web App Developer who uses C# and Visual Studio. I have been using macs forever and wanted to learn how to code for the iPhone and figured this is the best place to start learning Objective-C. This book is very good at explaining Objective-C and how to write code for it. I am at the eighth chapter and already am writing my own code. I downloaded the examples in the book and the way I approach it is, read the chapter, copy the example code (not from the clipboard!) then read the chapter again. The book has a bunch of great examples and is fun to do. I look forward to writing native mac apps!
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This book is amazing. It covers everything you need to know, in depth, very easy to read and understand, and very quick to digest. It is THE Cocoa Bible.
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If you plan to write for Mac OS X, and have some programming experience, this book is a MUST HAVE. This is by far the best introductory book I have ever read on any language.
If you DO NOT have programming experience, I would still recommend this book. There are some spots where the logic might be hard to grasp, but Aaron Hillegass walks you through it.
In either case, but more so for beginners, I would also recommend Programming in Objective-C (Developer's Library). The less experience you have, the more strongly I would suggest reading this book first. It will walk you through the basics of straight Objective-C and then start you off using frameworks in OS X. If you are a Windows user and do not have a Mac, Programming in Objective-C (Developer's Library) will show you how to write and compile Objective-C in Windows.
(Look for the new version of this book which uses Objective-C 2.0)
I come from Windows development, having programmed in VB ... Read More
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