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Summary: The Spirit of OPENSTEP Programming
Review: This book reflects the spirit of the NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP programmers perfectly. It starts very informally and goes on to proper applications. Along the way the author talks to you at the level of a casual friend and gives good anecdotal introductions to a lot of the ideas explained within. And he ends with telling you to be proud. Now, I'll admit I had a background in Objective-C programming and various NeXT objects, but I can see how this book could easily be used to learn ObjC along the way. And of course you have to be using the Apple Developer Tools with this book and it comes with the entire Apple book on Objective-C online and printable. That is in fact a clearly (both from my experience and from what the author tells readers) an essential companion to this book, the excellent online help Apple has provided. Despite having not written a proper NeXT app for _ages_ (though I have kept my ObjC skills in use as a general OO tool), I was able to write a functional application from the ground up the first night I read this book, and that is its true value. Overall it's a friendly tutorial on making use of the excellent tools Apple has provided to make quality programs on their excellent new old operating system. And that's why it works.
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Summary: Fantastic Cocoa Resource
Review: Before reading this book, I highly recommend you read the "Object-Oriented Programming and the Objective C Language" document from developer.apple.com. Forcing myself through the concentrated, dry spec made it easier to understand, enjoy, and appreciate Mr. Hillegass' wonderful explanations.
My favorite aspect of this book is that the author gets you into writing sample apps right away. After the 3rd chapter I felt like I knew the tools and environment well enough to write a very simple Cocoa app (like beginning programming excersize type things). I love how he takes you through the tools and shows you how to use them in the context of writing the sample program. When he explains concepts I feel like he does a very good job of giving concrete examples of when you would use such concepts in code.
The author's writing style felt like he was talking or lecturing to me, but without making me feel like a little kid.
A little about my background: I have a computer science degree, I know Java, and I've done some C++ programming as well. This book is NOT for you if you do NOT have any background in Object-Oriented Programming or if you do NOT have any background in C or C++ (you need to understand pointers and memory management in order to learn ObjC from this reference).
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Summary: you need this book
Review: It's books like this that make you realize that you want several books like this.There's really no such thing as an introductory Cocoa book - Cocoa is something for C programmers who have a desire to write GUI based apps from an object-oriented perspective. Cocoa's grad school; there's no particular undergraduate degree required; just good test scores and a desire to learn from people who have thought about hard problems longer than you have :-) Cocoa is a big, sprawling subject. This book is a great slice through a complex subject. A really great slice. The best slice thus far. But we still need about 2 or 3 more books at this level, and 2 or 3 more at a more advanced level. Want to learn about Cocoa? Then buy this book. Now. Start programming with it. And when you realize that there are other books you still need, Aaron will have done his job. Hopefully he'll have another book ready by then :-)
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Summary: Very well done!
Review: Mr Hillegass did a great job with Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. This is a great book - well worth every dollar complete with examples that make sense.
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Summary: Great coverage of Cocoa
Review: This a a great book. I highly recommend it. Great coverage of all the most common topics. Easy to read.
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Summary: Excellent book!
Review: I've been programming for nearly 5 years and I thought Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X is a well thought-out book. The examples are great, the writing and coverage of the topics is top notch and the illustrations are valuable. You'll get exposure to the most common areas of Coccoa and be developing real applications quickly. I only wish there were some coverage of more advanced topics. I learned a great deal with this book and I look forward to "Advanced Cocoa Programming".
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Summary: Teaching experience shows
Review: I was halfway through the O'Reilly book on this topic, and just stopped when I started the Hillegass book. (And my opinion of O'Reilly books is generally very high.) His experience as a teacher really shows. Each time a question arises in my mind, he answers it in the next paragraph. Perfectly targeted for the experienced programmer who simply doesn't know the Cocoa framework. Pretty hard to improve on this book.
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Summary: Marv
Review: Simply the best book for learning OS X Cocoa programing on the market today. Written in a chatty, easy to read style with lots of pictures by a bloke that knows what he's talking about. Much easier to read than "Learning Cocoa" from Apple. Working through the books chapters and accompanying programming challenges you actually learn and understand step-by-step. You will quickly have your own OS X programs up and running based on the examples in the book. A great starting place for new Cocoa programmers. Four stars not five because there are a few errors in the printing that I have - however the BigNerdRanch web site has all corrections online.
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Summary: The Best Book Ever
Review: I'm slightly biased, because I am the author, but I think this may be the best book ever. I've read the book dozens of times, and each time I find something new and delightful in it. It is useful, clear, timely, and even humorous at times.
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Summary: rehash of online documentation and biased against java
Review: When I first learned about this book, I was eager to get my hands on a copy. Now that I have, I'm disappointed. The content is mostly a rehash of the documentation that Apple has made available online (for free!). But what bugged me the most was the author's recommendation for developers who are interested in Cocoa NOT to use Java, because "Cocoa was written in and for Objective-C". He argues that Cocoa applications written in Java take longer to load, are slower, and use more memory than if they are written in Obj-C. Well, if I was going to write the software to control the next probe to land on Mars, then those would be major concerns. As it happens, today's Macs have more memory than most applications know what to do with and also they're sufficiently fast that half-a-second or so longer to load an application is imperceptible to the user. And most applications are not so mission-critical, anyway, for those concerns to be truly valid. Apple's decision to make Cocoa available to Java programmers was a smart one and the author of this book should have supported, not undermined, it. I hope Apple will keep working hard to integrate Java and Cocoa. I also hope to see more books on Cocoa from the perspective of a Java programmer. Feiler's book is a good start, but is far too verbose on issues that are not so relevant to the programmer who wants to start coding right away.
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