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| Programming in Objective-C (Developer's Library) | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephen Kochan
Publisher: Sams
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $24.28
You Save: $15.71 (39%)
New (29) Used (9) from $21.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 11169
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 7.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0672325861
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.133
UPC: 752063325865
EAN: 9780672325861
ASIN: 0672325861
Publication Date: December 18, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: P20081119142153H
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great Book November 7, 2004
20 out of 23 found this review helpful
Stephen Kochan books are always clear and concise and deliver all the material you need to know in a straight forward way. While I have been programming in ObjectiveC for since 1990, I bought this book to add to my library. To my surprise I realized that I also own a very worn 1988's copy of Programming in C.
One interesting twist on this book, is that it doesn't presume that you know how to program in C so it covers the C underpinnings of the language.
Solid book if you know at least some programming August 28, 2004
17 out of 21 found this review helpful
The introduction states (page 2): This book does not assume much, if any, previous programming experience. In fact, if you're a novice programmer, you should be able to learn Objective-C as your first programming language from this text.
These sentences are utterly incorrect. Bitwise operations and non decimal math (octal and hexadecimal), in particular, are not explained well. If you know these terms, you will be able to muddle through however. I took away no stars for this issue.
The book is chock full of errors that unfortunately seems typical of so many technical books published currently. (Be sure to get the errata.) Some errors are easily understood typos, while others are confusing. I took one star away for these errors.
Overall, the book has helped me learn Objective-C.
 Avoid if (1) you know C, or (2) you want something thoughtful! February 3, 2006
15 out of 29 found this review helpful
In general, this gets high marks from most reviewers, but I did not like it. I think the reason is that I have been a fairly competent C programmer for many years. So half the book was telling me things I already knew (what is a++ etc). Even worse, the other half had an elementary viewpoint. It was intended to help you rote learn mindlessly.
As I read about the language features I did not know, many obvious questions occurred (Why on earth would anyone use this apparently kludgy and inefficient NSNumber class? How does init differ from a C++ constructor?). But there was no intelligent discussion of such issues, you were left to figure it out for yourself.
There were also too many minor typos in the code examples.
A Very Clear, Understandable Guide June 18, 2005
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
I am a Visual Basic developer by trade but I switched to using a Mac at home a while ago. As a programmer I wanted to start writing applications for my Mac and I wanted to use Apple's own development tools. However, having no knowledge of C or C++ seemed to be a major stumbling block since most Objective-C or Cocoa books assume existing knowledge. Stephen is gracious enough to write his book for those of use who do not and his book is all the better for it. The chapters are presented in manageable blocks so that it is easy to sit down and work through an entire chapter without being shut away for hours and hours and everything is clearly laid out and explained in enough detail to be informative whilst not dumbing everything down excessively.
My only gripe, which is not really Stephen's fault, is that I think that I will also need a dedicated Cocoa book to take things further but, as a guide to Objective-C I really cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Excellent book for aspring programmers with no C experience November 3, 2005
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
New Mac computers come with a full suite of excellent objective-c programming tools called Xcode. This book is a great way for inexperienced programmers to learn ObjC without feeling overwhelmed. When I first decided I wanted to take up programming for the Mac, I was concerned that I would feel overwhelmed with arcane terminlogy and confusing explanations. I was very gratified to start into this book with no programming experience other than old school apple //c Basic and be able to write simple programs right from the start. That instills a sense of confidence that I think is essential to success in learning. The author makes sure that you understand what each line of code is for and you never feel like you're typing something that you don't understand.
I purchased this book as a bundle with "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Aaron Hillegass. I actually cracked that book first and successfully programmed my first example program. However in chapter 3 he writes "..this chapter assumes that you already know a little C and something about objects..". Since I have no C experience at all and only know about objects as "things", I put that book down and started with "Programming in Objective-C." I'm glad I did. This book focuses more on learning objective-C and touches only a little bit on how to use Xcode. Once I get further along I'm sure that the Hillegass book will be an excellent book for me to learn from.
If you're looking for 2 books to get you started in programming Objective-C, I would highly recommend the 2 book bundle.
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