On Nov 6, 2009, at 3:45 AM, Bernie wrote:

>
> Anyone interested in dabbling in Objective-C/Cocoa will have these
> 	Programming in Objective-C 2.0 by Stephen G. Kochan
> 	Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass


The book by Kochan does the job but it assumes you know nothing of C  
or any other procedural language. That makes the book much longer and  
boring in many areas where he simply covers standard C as it is used  
with Objective-C.

I just started reading( last night and went through the first 5  
chapter without having to crank up the computer or Xcode ):

Learn Objective-C on the Mac by Mark Dalrymple and Scott Knaster -  
subtitled "Everything you need to know to become an Objective-C guru"

This book is wonderful for an experienced programmer because it  
doesn't burden the reader with the basics of C or basics or  
programming. Right at the beginning the author advises the reader to  
go elsewhere if looking for the basics of programming. The writing  
style is direct with some subtle humor ( by contrast Eric T.'s Cocoa  
for Dummies book exudes not-so-funny humor). I have only read 5 of 17  
chapters but so far the material is educational. The book doesn't  
require a computer for the first 5 chapters ( and possibly beyond )  
and I found this to be a plus. The authors also provide an  
introduction to OOP programming that is useful; They contrast  
procedural programming with OOP and not only describe the benefits of  
OOP but show them. An example is written in procedural C using structs  
and typedef enums. The authors walk us through how changes and  
enhancements might be made in the procedural code and then immediately  
write an Objective-C version of the same code demonstrating it is less  
work, less code and less prone to errors. Until this reading I hadn't  
seen an author tackle this obvious question: "what are the benefits of  
OOP versus Procedural and why should I change?" Someone like me who  
has done procedural for decades needs convincing before I'm willing to  
take a major plunge. Based on my limited reading, I would recommend  
this book.


Brian