[danywachy]

I have some experience with programming language, I understand the basics and more. So Im not a complete newbie, but I have never learned an object oriented language in a FORMAL way. After apple released the news for the SDK I got really interested in improving my current programming techniques and become a real programmer. I think I have what it takes to at least write some decent programs for the iphone. I know this takes time and lots of learning and reading.

I wanted to know what are the reccomendations from developers here in the forums as far as what books should I read. Also objective c seems to be the language to learn but, what other languages would you guys reccomend em to learn or know about.

Anyway, any help or suggestions are welcomed !! thanks !!

By the way what is the difference between:

Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C
The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language

Apple makes mention of them as different things in the developer site. Is 2.0 just a newer objective-C ?

[dlubbat]

Please cold someone post some good books

I am also very interested in this and I would love to learn

Thanks

[echo]

Ditto. I'm keen on learning as well.

cheers,
e

[cpatch]

Originally Posted by danywachy

By the way what is the difference between:

Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C
The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language

Apple makes mention of them as different things in the developer site. Is 2.0 just a newer objective-C ?

First of all, yes...2.0 is a newer version of Objective-C. Second, "Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C" is an intro to Objective C, while "The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language" goes more in-depth. You should read them in the order you listed them. Neither, however, does a good job of explaining object oriented programming to someone who isn't familiar with it. For that you should pick up a copy of "Programming in Objective-C" and read that first.

For iPhone development, read "iPhone OS Programming Guide," available for free from Apple's iPhone Dev Center. Avoid "iPhone Open Application Development," listed on Amazon, since it was written for the development of 1.1.x apps only and does not cover the SDK.

Due to legal restrictions from Apple, don't expect any books on iPhone development until July at the earliest.

Craig

[NetMage]

I would recommend some of the books available on Cocoa that will help provide background for how the environment works. Aaron Hillegass is always mentioned for his Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (I have 1st and 2nd edition for toolchain and SDK help).

Of course, if you are (very) very serious, you could tackle Brad Cox's Object-oriented Programming, An Evolutionary Approach for some really deep background (ok, maybe the Smalltalk-80 blue book would be really deep background LOL).

[sldsnk]

Hi

I own "Learning Cocoa with Objective-C" By Apple Computer, Inc. , James Duncan Davidson, Publisher: O'Reilly, and it is very helpful for starting objective-c. It doesn't cover Objective-C 2.0 tho, but it is a really good book and my favorite Cocoa book. I had a light programming background when I started with Cocoa but it is not very hard. Also, let me recommend that you visit http://www.cocoadevcentral.com/ lots of high quality tutorials. In any case, make sure you understand the tutorials (in the books or websites) and take it from there.. good luck

[erdcaged]

Try this - iPhone Open Application Development: Write Native Objective-C Applications for the iPhone (

Amazon.com: iPhone Open Application Development:...
Amazon.com: iPhone Open Application Development:...

)

This was written by NerveGas - Iphone-Dev Team Member

[JLA]

Unfortunately there aren't a lot of books out on the subject of ObjC.

My recomendation: print out the stuff on the Apple website that the above posts recommend.

I have the Kochan book on ObjC, and it's good, but I don't think it was the "ObjC for people who program in other languages" type book that I wanted. And it touched very little on frameworks (like Cocoa). If you've programmed before, the bulk of what you need to know for simple ObjC is fairly easy to pick up on your own, and the finer points are often included in books on Cocoa.

I read the Hillegass Cocoa Programming for Mac OS book and I found it well written and extremely helpful, even though it is for the Mac. In fact, this would be be my number one book I've read on the subject...there were a whole lot of occasions where I would read something and some part of Objective C or Cocoa would "click"...it was seemingly obvious stuff that other sources failed to mention. These helpful hints are scattered throughout the book, not necessarily in any place where you'd think to look.

I got a Quartz 2D book by Thompson, and it is useful as well, although it turns out Quartz2D is fairly similar to Java2D, which I was already familiar with.

[Neo0019]

Originally Posted by JLA

Unfortunately there aren't a lot of books out on the subject of ObjC.

My recomendation: print out the stuff on the Apple website that the above posts recommend.

I have the Kochan book on ObjC, and it's good, but I don't think it was the "ObjC for people who program in other languages" type book that I wanted. And it touched very little on frameworks (like Cocoa). If you've programmed before, the bulk of what you need to know for simple ObjC is fairly easy to pick up on your own, and the finer points are often included in books on Cocoa.

I read the Hillegass Cocoa Programming for Mac OS book and I found it well written and extremely helpful, even though it is for the Mac. In fact, this would be be my number one book I've read on the subject...there were a whole lot of occasions where I would read something and some part of Objective C or Cocoa would "click"...it was seemingly obvious stuff that other sources failed to mention. These helpful hints are scattered throughout the book, not necessarily in any place where you'd think to look.

I got a Quartz 2D book by Thompson, and it is useful as well, although it turns out Quartz2D is fairly similar to Java2D, which I was already familiar with.

Exacly what I did I Print most of the books from my job 400p long! but I will recommend trying out C or even Pearl first and then going into Obj-C Head on. Good luck for you and me

[pingwhen]

i am 17 and me and visual basic are best friends HA ya i know ...... i know visual vasic pretty well, will i be able to learn object c???

[BlackWolf]

I was in the exact same position as you. A little programming knowledge, but mostly PHP and not very much objective stuff.
I'm currently trying to learn Objective C and cocoa touch. It's hard (as you can see from my numerous posts in this forum ) but its doable and I'm using the stuff from apples developer page and google. Actually, apple did a pretty good job with their documentation, but still some stuff is really hard to understand if you are not familiar with these kind of things. I'm having my fair share of problems with this myself, but I started learning about a week ago and I made good progress (at least I think so) and I only used the apple PDFs and documentation.

regards

[NetMage]

Originally Posted by pingwhen

i am 17 and me and visual basic are best friends HA ya i know ...... i know visual vasic pretty well, will i be able to learn object c???

I think it depends on whether you mean Visual Basic or Visual Basic.Net.

Obviously a C# programmer will have a headstart, but if you are familiar with .Net programming then a lot of MVC concepts should seem pretty familiar. Especially if you've delved behind the designer to see the code generated to create your UI.

In a lot of ways Objective-C is a fairly primitive language in modern terms, mostly due to its extensive C bias, but also I think because it lacks some of the higher level functions Smalltalk had (blocks, anyone?) and because Cocoa makes some compromises for performance and smaller environments. Ironically, this makes it a good development system for the iPhone.

[pingwhen]

Originally Posted by NetMage

I think it depends on whether you mean Visual Basic or Visual Basic.Net.

Obviously a C# programmer will have a headstart, but if you are familiar with .Net programming then a lot of MVC concepts should seem pretty familiar. Especially if you've delved behind the designer to see the code generated to create your UI.

In a lot of ways Objective-C is a fairly primitive language in modern terms, mostly due to its extensive C bias, but also I think because it lacks some of the higher level functions Smalltalk had (blocks, anyone?)
and because Cocoa makes some compromises for performance and smaller environments. Ironically, this makes it a good development system for the iPhone.

Ya .net thanks for the clear up. Can't wait to get my MacBook pro now

[cpatch]

Originally Posted by BlackWolf

I'm having my fair share of problems with this myself, but I started learning about a week ago and I made good progress (at least I think so) and I only used the apple PDFs and documentation.

You may want to add Apple's sample source code to your study list as well...figuring out how the sample apps work and making changes to the source code is another excellent learning tool.

Craig

[BlackWolf]

Originally Posted by cpatch

You may want to add Apple's sample source code to your study list as well...figuring out how the sample apps work and making changes to the source code is another excellent learning tool.

Craig

thanks, but I just forgot to mention those. that was actually one of the first things I did If you don't know anything about cocoa or Objective C, after you read the basic things about objective C you can take the (really simple) sample app that is provided with the SDK and just take a look at it and try to understand it. after that you can proceed to more advanced samples you can get from the developer page. that's really good for learning, I'm still using those samples if I don't know how to do something (like I used them to learn about events, animations, etc.)