Suitable for anyone with a little 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-understand code examples help make this text an excellent resource. It also helps that Hillegass is a truly engaging writer. He first explains how legacy NeXTSTEP platform has evolved into Cocoa on the Mac OS X. Starting 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 learn 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 helps that beginners will not get lost in the details of Cocoa development, but will give the more advanced reader something more to do.

While there a 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 still, knows how to teach it to others. --Richard Dragan

Best book to start with!, 27 Aug 2008
Awesome book, very approachable. For anyone coming to Mac programming for the first time, this is the book to start with.

Not as scary as I thought., 09 Jul 2008
I've had a project on the back burner for some time that required me to get to grips with Cocoa: no ifs, no buts. My timing wasn't ideal as XCode had gone from version 2 to version 3 without the documentation being updated, so I've been gingerly playing with Cocoa for about 5 months, but not really getting very far owing to the hurdles presented by the many interface changes.

Starting this book was nothing less than a revelation. I'm up to p77 of 418 pages and am surprised how quickly I'm getting to grips with tricky objective-c syntax (although it's really not too bad once you stop being scared of square brackets) and working with Interface Builder. The trickiest subject is memory management, and I must say I was rocking backwards and forwards gibbering 'this is hard, I'm not stupid' and clutching tightly to my degree certificate as Aaron recommends, but even this rather murky subject is beginning to sink in.

His writing style is very fluent and his many years of experience teaching people this technology is evident from the content. I'd shy away from saying this is a book for beginners, but if you've got a smattering of programming experience (PHP and a spot of Ruby is my background) and want to write good programs for the Rolls Royces of home computing, then this book has got to be at the top of your shopping list (assuming you've already bought a Mac that is! ).

Beware Xcode3 is here!, 08 Jul 2008
I've just bought the 2nd edition of this book (yellow cover) to save money. It seems to be a good book - clear and well laid out... BUT THERES A PROBLEM...
To use this book, you download Xcode3 tool from Apple.com (easy and free)

The 2nd Edition of the this book (Yellow cover) relates to Xcode2 and is badly out of date.. its not possible to follow the picture instructions since one of the key applications (interface builder) has completely changed.
So I would strongly advise to buy the 3rd Edition (grey/green cover)... even though its a packet more expensive... I guess this is the cost of evolution!

Unless of course you would like to buy my 2nd edition.. which I now can't use?? :D




The perfect starting point for learning Cocoa/Obj-C, 14 Jun 2008
As someone who made the switch to Macs/OS X just over 18-months ago, my interest in how the OS worked led me to buying this book. It's probably the best computer book I've bought full-stop.

This is THE BOOK you need to buy for a first-class authoritative introduction to Cocoa, the programming environment for OS X.

A programming book that doesn't put you to sleep, 27 Nov 2003
I've just finished reading "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" and have to say its amongst the best programming books I've ever read. It's aimed at people with C or Java experience who are new to objective C and Cocoa. The author demonstrates his skills as a teacher by delivering information in a progressive and easily digested manner. He begins by introducing the language and tools with a basic random number generator application and then builds on this with a number of tutorial applications. Topics covered include localisation, custom views, mouse and key events, fonts, images, printing, cut and paste, drag and drop, timers, sheets, printing, and creating your own Interface Builder Palates and controls. Cocoa is vast but this serves as an excellent starting block, covering the essentials and tasters required to progress deeper. Its very easy and enjoyable to read with challenges at the end of each chapter to help solidify your understanding. I read it from cover to cover which is unusual for me with a programming book.

I've been using OS X 10.3 which has had changes to the development tools since the book was written For example Project Builder is now called XCode, has code completion facilities and some of the menus have moved. However this didn't prove to be a problem and differences were rather obvious.

Can't really recommend it any higher!

Best book to start with!, 27 Aug 2008
Awesome book, very approachable. For anyone coming to Mac programming for the first time, this is the book to start with.

Not as scary as I thought., 09 Jul 2008
I've had a project on the back burner for some time that required me to get to grips with Cocoa: no ifs, no buts. My timing wasn't ideal as XCode had gone from version 2 to version 3 without the documentation being updated, so I've been gingerly playing with Cocoa for about 5 months, but not really getting very far owing to the hurdles presented by the many interface changes.

Starting this book was nothing less than a revelation. I'm up to p77 of 418 pages and am surprised how quickly I'm getting to grips with tricky objective-c syntax (although it's really not too bad once you stop being scared of square brackets) and working with Interface Builder. The trickiest subject is memory management, and I must say I was rocking backwards and forwards gibbering 'this is hard, I'm not stupid' and clutching tightly to my degree certificate as Aaron recommends, but even this rather murky subject is beginning to sink in.

His writing style is very fluent and his many years of experience teaching people this technology is evident from the content. I'd shy away from saying this is a book for beginners, but if you've got a smattering of programming experience (PHP and a spot of Ruby is my background) and want to write good programs for the Rolls Royces of home computing, then this book has got to be at the top of your shopping list (assuming you've already bought a Mac that is! ).

Beware Xcode3 is here!, 08 Jul 2008
I've just bought the 2nd edition of this book (yellow cover) to save money. It seems to be a good book - clear and well laid out... BUT THERES A PROBLEM...
To use this book, you download Xcode3 tool from Apple.com (easy and free)

The 2nd Edition of the this book (Yellow cover) relates to Xcode2 and is badly out of date.. its not possible to follow the picture instructions since one of the key applications (interface builder) has completely changed.
So I would strongly advise to buy the 3rd Edition (grey/green cover)... even though its a packet more expensive... I guess this is the cost of evolution!

Unless of course you would like to buy my 2nd edition.. which I now can't use?? :D




The perfect starting point for learning Cocoa/Obj-C, 14 Jun 2008
As someone who made the switch to Macs/OS X just over 18-months ago, my interest in how the OS worked led me to buying this book. It's probably the best computer book I've bought full-stop.

This is THE BOOK you need to buy for a first-class authoritative introduction to Cocoa, the programming environment for OS X.

A programming book that doesn't put you to sleep, 27 Nov 2003
I've just finished reading "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" and have to say its amongst the best programming books I've ever read. It's aimed at people with C or Java experience who are new to objective C and Cocoa. The author demonstrates his skills as a teacher by delivering information in a progressive and easily digested manner. He begins by introducing the language and tools with a basic random number generator application and then builds on this with a number of tutorial applications. Topics covered include localisation, custom views, mouse and key events, fonts, images, printing, cut and paste, drag and drop, timers, sheets, printing, and creating your own Interface Builder Palates and controls. Cocoa is vast but this serves as an excellent starting block, covering the essentials and tasters required to progress deeper. Its very easy and enjoyable to read with challenges at the end of each chapter to help solidify your understanding. I read it from cover to cover which is unusual for me with a programming book.

I've been using OS X 10.3 which has had changes to the development tools since the book was written For example Project Builder is now called XCode, has code completion facilities and some of the menus have moved. However this didn't prove to be a problem and differences were rather obvious.

Can't really recommend it any higher!

out of date, 18 Jul 2008
the book refers to project builder rather than xcode. admits xcode was on the way when it was written, but says 'these instructions should work fine'. They didn't for me - the output from the first program never appears on screen. I've been googling for answers to this, and discovered the Apple documentation for xcode which I'll now have to study first.
Admittedly it does give instructions for compiling from terminal or windows if you prefer.

A great book!, 03 Nov 2006
A really great book for learning Objective-C. Buy it and you will not regret it. It contains small (but complete) Objective-C examples for better understanding the language concepts.

One of the truly great language tutorials, 02 Mar 2006
I first discovered Objective C in 1989 from Brad Cox's original book, but I wasn't impressed and learned C++ instead. Now I have an Apple and Objective C has won me round. I've read Hillegass and the Apple online help and that was OK, but this book really takes you into the language properly. It is very clearly explained and covers all the nooks and crannies that would otherwise trip you up - and had been tripping me up. There are very few great language tutors - and I say that as someone who has tried writing one, and know how hard it is! This is one of them.

Hey, where's the sixth star?, 19 Jul 2005
If it was possible I would have given this book six stars. It brought me into programming Objective C in a week (I tried to learn C many years ago, but got nowhere)! It's seriously the best book I have ever read on the topic of programming.

Kochan takes you through the fundamentals of Objective C programming in an easy and very straight-forward way. When writing my first 100% self-made programs I was stunned that most errors I made were mentioned as possible errors in the book.

The examples are also short. That's a big plus, because you can easily execute them in your head, keeping your level of understanding up.

Kochan also mentiones special fields that you MUST understand to continue. That's very nice, and probably saved me many times!

This book is a MUST BUY for anyone interested in programming in Objective C and especially for the Mac.

If only there were more programming books like this one..., 28 Jul 2004
This book is the most lucid book on programming I have ever read. Having a little (self-taught) experience in C, this book was recommended to me as a good foundation before trying to learn Cocoa for programming on Max OS X. I fully expected to be confronted with the sort of doorstopper that I would never finish, as has been the case with several C++ books; instead, I found a straightforward, uncluttered guide, written by somebody with a genuine talent for teaching.

The author takes the approach of not trying to teach you C first, and this has two advantages: first, if you have no C experience, you get started immediately learning Objective-C, so you don't get taught one thing only to be told to forget it later; second, if you do have some C experience, you are thrown into object-oriented programming right from the start. The explanations are consistently concise but clear, and I found myself getting through a chapter or two every night after work and feeling that I was learning something significant on every page. I read someone describe it elsewhere as "Teach Yourself Objective-C in 21 Days," except that this book really could live up to such a title. I wholeheartedly agree - it took me only three weeks to work through the whole book, including nearly all of the exercises. If, like me, you have seen terms such as "polymorphism", "inheritance", "instance method" and "subclassing" bandied around only to stare at them in mute incomprehension, this book is a revelation. The author introduces all such major concepts very gently - in fact they seem to creep up on you, so that by the time you are presented with the proper terminology you either already know what it means or find yourself exclaiming - as I did - "Oh, so that's all polymorphism is!"

My only gripe - and it is very minor - is that the explanations of bitwise operators and bitfields are near incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't have a programming background (or rather, they are explained well, but there is no indication of when you would ever use them), and the author does occasionally (though rarely) seem to assume that the reader has a solid maths background (when there are those of us out there from humanities and arts backgrounds who want to learn to program, too). These topics take up little more than several paragraphs of the 500 or so pages, though, so if you're a novice, don't let them daunt you as they are the exception rather than the rule.

One thing I appreciated about this book was that full code is provided for 99% of the examples - you are never left with an example that won't compile because the author assumed you could guess the rest yourself. Moreover, whilst the examples and exercises do develop on code from previous chapters - in particular, you will develop a Calculator, Fraction, and Rectangle class in the first part of the book, and AddressCard and AddressBook classes in the second part - the author wisely avoids the build-one-big-program approach that some books adopt. This keeps things fresh and lively - you have to type in different examples, meaning you become familiar with the language through repetition, but at the same time you are doing different things in the examples themselves. Moreover the exercises at the end of each chapter are well judged - you are forced to think and look back through the book to recap on what you have learned, and they are difficult without being too difficult. (Don't skip them!)

In the second part of the book, the author moves on to the Foundation framework, which forms half of Cocoa (Cocoa also uses the AppKit for creating GUI's). You will learn how to use NSString, NSArray, NSDictionary (and their mutable counterparts) and a lot more. It builds on everything you've learned in Part One and provides a bridge between the basics of Objective-C and moving on to Cocoa. I expect that this part of the book especially will become dog-eared very quickly. To sum up, this book took me from knowing nothing about Ojbective-C to feeling as though I could write all the background code for the app I have in mind (ie. everything except the GUI). I am now just hoping that Hillegass's book on Cocoa is half as good.

A word of advice: I urge anybody who buys this book to print off the errata on the author's website (the address is given in the book), as there are a few minor errors that might stump you if you don't. Also, if you use Xcode instead of the command-line tools, you will need to delete the contents of the automatically-generated ..._Prefix.pch file as well as the #import line at the top of main.m each time you start a project (the book only specifies the latter). The prefix file caused me some headaches in one of the later chapters.

A lot of people on various forums say that this is the only book from which to learn Objective-C, and I can see why. In short, if you are reading this review you are probably thinking about learning Objective-C, either for its own sake or as groundwork for moving on to Cocoa. Which means that if you are reading this review, you should buy this book.

Best book to start with!, 27 Aug 2008
Awesome book, very approachable. For anyone coming to Mac programming for the first time, this is the book to start with.

Not as scary as I thought., 09 Jul 2008
I've had a project on the back burner for some time that required me to get to grips with Cocoa: no ifs, no buts. My timing wasn't ideal as XCode had gone from version 2 to version 3 without the documentation being updated, so I've been gingerly playing with Cocoa for about 5 months, but not really getting very far owing to the hurdles presented by the many interface changes.

Starting this book was nothing less than a revelation. I'm up to p77 of 418 pages and am surprised how quickly I'm getting to grips with tricky objective-c syntax (although it's really not too bad once you stop being scared of square brackets) and working with Interface Builder. The trickiest subject is memory management, and I must say I was rocking backwards and forwards gibbering 'this is hard, I'm not stupid' and clutching tightly to my degree certificate as Aaron recommends, but even this rather murky subject is beginning to sink in.

His writing style is very fluent and his many years of experience teaching people this technology is evident from the content. I'd shy away from saying this is a book for beginners, but if you've got a smattering of programming experience (PHP and a spot of Ruby is my background) and want to write good programs for the Rolls Royces of home computing, then this book has got to be at the top of your shopping list (assuming you've already bought a Mac that is! ).

Beware Xcode3 is here!, 08 Jul 2008
I've just bought the 2nd edition of this book (yellow cover) to save money. It seems to be a good book - clear and well laid out... BUT THERES A PROBLEM...
To use this book, you download Xcode3 tool from Apple.com (easy and free)

The 2nd Edition of the this book (Yellow cover) relates to Xcode2 and is badly out of date.. its not possible to follow the picture instructions since one of the key applications (interface builder) has completely changed.
So I would strongly advise to buy the 3rd Edition (grey/green cover)... even though its a packet more expensive... I guess this is the cost of evolution!

Unless of course you would like to buy my 2nd edition.. which I now can't use?? :D




The perfect starting point for learning Cocoa/Obj-C, 14 Jun 2008
As someone who made the switch to Macs/OS X just over 18-months ago, my interest in how the OS worked led me to buying this book. It's probably the best computer book I've bought full-stop.

This is THE BOOK you need to buy for a first-class authoritative introduction to Cocoa, the programming environment for OS X.

A programming book that doesn't put you to sleep, 27 Nov 2003
I've just finished reading "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" and have to say its amongst the best programming books I've ever read. It's aimed at people with C or Java experience who are new to objective C and Cocoa. The author demonstrates his skills as a teacher by delivering information in a progressive and easily digested manner. He begins by introducing the language and tools with a basic random number generator application and then builds on this with a number of tutorial applications. Topics covered include localisation, custom views, mouse and key events, fonts, images, printing, cut and paste, drag and drop, timers, sheets, printing, and creating your own Interface Builder Palates and controls. Cocoa is vast but this serves as an excellent starting block, covering the essentials and tasters required to progress deeper. Its very easy and enjoyable to read with challenges at the end of each chapter to help solidify your understanding. I read it from cover to cover which is unusual for me with a programming book.

I've been using OS X 10.3 which has had changes to the development tools since the book was written For example Project Builder is now called XCode, has code completion facilities and some of the menus have moved. However this didn't prove to be a problem and differences were rather obvious.

Can't really recommend it any higher!

out of date, 18 Jul 2008
the book refers to project builder rather than xcode. admits xcode was on the way when it was written, but says 'these instructions should work fine'. They didn't for me - the output from the first program never appears on screen. I've been googling for answers to this, and discovered the Apple documentation for xcode which I'll now have to study first.
Admittedly it does give instructions for compiling from terminal or windows if you prefer.

A great book!, 03 Nov 2006
A really great book for learning Objective-C. Buy it and you will not regret it. It contains small (but complete) Objective-C examples for better understanding the language concepts.

One of the truly great language tutorials, 02 Mar 2006
I first discovered Objective C in 1989 from Brad Cox's original book, but I wasn't impressed and learned C++ instead. Now I have an Apple and Objective C has won me round. I've read Hillegass and the Apple online help and that was OK, but this book really takes you into the language properly. It is very clearly explained and covers all the nooks and crannies that would otherwise trip you up - and had been tripping me up. There are very few great language tutors - and I say that as someone who has tried writing one, and know how hard it is! This is one of them.

Hey, where's the sixth star?, 19 Jul 2005
If it was possible I would have given this book six stars. It brought me into programming Objective C in a week (I tried to learn C many years ago, but got nowhere)! It's seriously the best book I have ever read on the topic of programming.

Kochan takes you through the fundamentals of Objective C programming in an easy and very straight-forward way. When writing my first 100% self-made programs I was stunned that most errors I made were mentioned as possible errors in the book.

The examples are also short. That's a big plus, because you can easily execute them in your head, keeping your level of understanding up.

Kochan also mentiones special fields that you MUST understand to continue. That's very nice, and probably saved me many times!

This book is a MUST BUY for anyone interested in programming in Objective C and especially for the Mac.

If only there were more programming books like this one..., 28 Jul 2004
This book is the most lucid book on programming I have ever read. Having a little (self-taught) experience in C, this book was recommended to me as a good foundation before trying to learn Cocoa for programming on Max OS X. I fully expected to be confronted with the sort of doorstopper that I would never finish, as has been the case with several C++ books; instead, I found a straightforward, uncluttered guide, written by somebody with a genuine talent for teaching.

The author takes the approach of not trying to teach you C first, and this has two advantages: first, if you have no C experience, you get started immediately learning Objective-C, so you don't get taught one thing only to be told to forget it later; second, if you do have some C experience, you are thrown into object-oriented programming right from the start. The explanations are consistently concise but clear, and I found myself getting through a chapter or two every night after work and feeling that I was learning something significant on every page. I read someone describe it elsewhere as "Teach Yourself Objective-C in 21 Days," except that this book really could live up to such a title. I wholeheartedly agree - it took me only three weeks to work through the whole book, including nearly all of the exercises. If, like me, you have seen terms such as "polymorphism", "inheritance", "instance method" and "subclassing" bandied around only to stare at them in mute incomprehension, this book is a revelation. The author introduces all such major concepts very gently - in fact they seem to creep up on you, so that by the time you are presented with the proper terminology you either already know what it means or find yourself exclaiming - as I did - "Oh, so that's all polymorphism is!"

My only gripe - and it is very minor - is that the explanations of bitwise operators and bitfields are near incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't have a programming background (or rather, they are explained well, but there is no indication of when you would ever use them), and the author does occasionally (though rarely) seem to assume that the reader has a solid maths background (when there are those of us out there from humanities and arts backgrounds who want to learn to program, too). These topics take up little more than several paragraphs of the 500 or so pages, though, so if you're a novice, don't let them daunt you as they are the exception rather than the rule.

One thing I appreciated about this book was that full code is provided for 99% of the examples - you are never left with an example that won't compile because the author assumed you could guess the rest yourself. Moreover, whilst the examples and exercises do develop on code from previous chapters - in particular, you will develop a Calculator, Fraction, and Rectangle class in the first part of the book, and AddressCard and AddressBook classes in the second part - the author wisely avoids the build-one-big-program approach that some books adopt. This keeps things fresh and lively - you have to type in different examples, meaning you become familiar with the language through repetition, but at the same time you are doing different things in the examples themselves. Moreover the exercises at the end of each chapter are well judged - you are forced to think and look back through the book to recap on what you have learned, and they are difficult without being too difficult. (Don't skip them!)

In the second part of the book, the author moves on to the Foundation framework, which forms half of Cocoa (Cocoa also uses the AppKit for creating GUI's). You will learn how to use NSString, NSArray, NSDictionary (and their mutable counterparts) and a lot more. It builds on everything you've learned in Part One and provides a bridge between the basics of Objective-C and moving on to Cocoa. I expect that this part of the book especially will become dog-eared very quickly. To sum up, this book took me from knowing nothing about Ojbective-C to feeling as though I could write all the background code for the app I have in mind (ie. everything except the GUI). I am now just hoping that Hillegass's book on Cocoa is half as good.

A word of advice: I urge anybody who buys this book to print off the errata on the author's website (the address is given in the book), as there are a few minor errors that might stump you if you don't. Also, if you use Xcode instead of the command-line tools, you will need to delete the contents of the automatically-generated ..._Prefix.pch file as well as the #import line at the top of main.m each time you start a project (the book only specifies the latter). The prefix file caused me some headaches in one of the later chapters.

A lot of people on various forums say that this is the only book from which to learn Objective-C, and I can see why. In short, if you are reading this review you are probably thinking about learning Objective-C, either for its own sake or as groundwork for moving on to Cocoa. Which means that if you are reading this review, you should buy this book.

Excellent guide, not for the novice, 10 Sep 2008
I found this book to be an tremendous guide to Xcode 3, however it is not for the novice programmer or someone unfamiliar with objective c / Cocoa. It makes a perfect companion to Hillegass and fills in many of the blanks left by his (also excellent) book.

Good follow-on to COCOA programming for mac os x third edition, 05 Sep 2008
I've just started reading this and bought it after reading positive reviews on amazon.com. If you're an experienced developer and have read COCOA programming for mac os x third edition then this seems a good follow-on.

COCOA programming is the course notes and this book contains all the little things the instructor likes to mention to show how clever they are. The things that save time.

Some of it seems a little unnecessary (do we need to know full detail around compilation and builds?). But, still a good buy.

A bit disappointed, 20 Aug 2008
I bought this book looking for a good guide to objective c / cocoa programming in xcode 3. As a developer resource this book is pretty weak, as a guide to the tools in xcode it's great!

Best book to start with!, 27 Aug 2008
Awesome book, very approachable. For anyone coming to Mac programming for the first time, this is the book to start with.

Not as scary as I thought., 09 Jul 2008
I've had a project on the back burner for some time that required me to get to grips with Cocoa: no ifs, no buts. My timing wasn't ideal as XCode had gone from version 2 to version 3 without the documentation being updated, so I've been gingerly playing with Cocoa for about 5 months, but not really getting very far owing to the hurdles presented by the many interface changes.

Starting this book was nothing less than a revelation. I'm up to p77 of 418 pages and am surprised how quickly I'm getting to grips with tricky objective-c syntax (although it's really not too bad once you stop being scared of square brackets) and working with Interface Builder. The trickiest subject is memory management, and I must say I was rocking backwards and forwards gibbering 'this is hard, I'm not stupid' and clutching tightly to my degree certificate as Aaron recommends, but even this rather murky subject is beginning to sink in.

His writing style is very fluent and his many years of experience teaching people this technology is evident from the content. I'd shy away from saying this is a book for beginners, but if you've got a smattering of programming experience (PHP and a spot of Ruby is my background) and want to write good programs for the Rolls Royces of home computing, then this book has got to be at the top of your shopping list (assuming you've already bought a Mac that is! ).

Beware Xcode3 is here!, 08 Jul 2008
I've just bought the 2nd edition of this book (yellow cover) to save money. It seems to be a good book - clear and well laid out... BUT THERES A PROBLEM...
To use this book, you download Xcode3 tool from Apple.com (easy and free)

The 2nd Edition of the this book (Yellow cover) relates to Xcode2 and is badly out of date.. its not possible to follow the picture instructions since one of the key applications (interface builder) has completely changed.
So I would strongly advise to buy the 3rd Edition (grey/green cover)... even though its a packet more expensive... I guess this is the cost of evolution!

Unless of course you would like to buy my 2nd edition.. which I now can't use?? :D




The perfect starting point for learning Cocoa/Obj-C, 14 Jun 2008
As someone who made the switch to Macs/OS X just over 18-months ago, my interest in how the OS worked led me to buying this book. It's probably the best computer book I've bought full-stop.

This is THE BOOK you need to buy for a first-class authoritative introduction to Cocoa, the programming environment for OS X.

A programming book that doesn't put you to sleep, 27 Nov 2003
I've just finished reading "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" and have to say its amongst the best programming books I've ever read. It's aimed at people with C or Java experience who are new to objective C and Cocoa. The author demonstrates his skills as a teacher by delivering information in a progressive and easily digested manner. He begins by introducing the language and tools with a basic random number generator application and then builds on this with a number of tutorial applications. Topics covered include localisation, custom views, mouse and key events, fonts, images, printing, cut and paste, drag and drop, timers, sheets, printing, and creating your own Interface Builder Palates and controls. Cocoa is vast but this serves as an excellent starting block, covering the essentials and tasters required to progress deeper. Its very easy and enjoyable to read with challenges at the end of each chapter to help solidify your understanding. I read it from cover to cover which is unusual for me with a programming book.

I've been using OS X 10.3 which has had changes to the development tools since the book was written For example Project Builder is now called XCode, has code completion facilities and some of the menus have moved. However this didn't prove to be a problem and differences were rather obvious.

Can't really recommend it any higher!

out of date, 18 Jul 2008
the book refers to project builder rather than xcode. admits xcode was on the way when it was written, but says 'these instructions should work fine'. They didn't for me - the output from the first program never appears on screen. I've been googling for answers to this, and discovered the Apple documentation for xcode which I'll now have to study first.
Admittedly it does give instructions for compiling from terminal or windows if you prefer.

A great book!, 03 Nov 2006
A really great book for learning Objective-C. Buy it and you will not regret it. It contains small (but complete) Objective-C examples for better understanding the language concepts.

One of the truly great language tutorials, 02 Mar 2006
I first discovered Objective C in 1989 from Brad Cox's original book, but I wasn't impressed and learned C++ instead. Now I have an Apple and Objective C has won me round. I've read Hillegass and the Apple online help and that was OK, but this book really takes you into the language properly. It is very clearly explained and covers all the nooks and crannies that would otherwise trip you up - and had been tripping me up. There are very few great language tutors - and I say that as someone who has tried writing one, and know how hard it is! This is one of them.

Hey, where's the sixth star?, 19 Jul 2005
If it was possible I would have given this book six stars. It brought me into programming Objective C in a week (I tried to learn C many years ago, but got nowhere)! It's seriously the best book I have ever read on the topic of programming.

Kochan takes you through the fundamentals of Objective C programming in an easy and very straight-forward way. When writing my first 100% self-made programs I was stunned that most errors I made were mentioned as possible errors in the book.

The examples are also short. That's a big plus, because you can easily execute them in your head, keeping your level of understanding up.

Kochan also mentiones special fields that you MUST understand to continue. That's very nice, and probably saved me many times!

This book is a MUST BUY for anyone interested in programming in Objective C and especially for the Mac.

If only there were more programming books like this one..., 28 Jul 2004
This book is the most lucid book on programming I have ever read. Having a little (self-taught) experience in C, this book was recommended to me as a good foundation before trying to learn Cocoa for programming on Max OS X. I fully expected to be confronted with the sort of doorstopper that I would never finish, as has been the case with several C++ books; instead, I found a straightforward, uncluttered guide, written by somebody with a genuine talent for teaching.

The author takes the approach of not trying to teach you C first, and this has two advantages: first, if you have no C experience, you get started immediately learning Objective-C, so you don't get taught one thing only to be told to forget it later; second, if you do have some C experience, you are thrown into object-oriented programming right from the start. The explanations are consistently concise but clear, and I found myself getting through a chapter or two every night after work and feeling that I was learning something significant on every page. I read someone describe it elsewhere as "Teach Yourself Objective-C in 21 Days," except that this book really could live up to such a title. I wholeheartedly agree - it took me only three weeks to work through the whole book, including nearly all of the exercises. If, like me, you have seen terms such as "polymorphism", "inheritance", "instance method" and "subclassing" bandied around only to stare at them in mute incomprehension, this book is a revelation. The author introduces all such major concepts very gently - in fact they seem to creep up on you, so that by the time you are presented with the proper terminology you either already know what it means or find yourself exclaiming - as I did - "Oh, so that's all polymorphism is!"

My only gripe - and it is very minor - is that the explanations of bitwise operators and bitfields are near incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't have a programming background (or rather, they are explained well, but there is no indication of when you would ever use them), and the author does occasionally (though rarely) seem to assume that the reader has a solid maths background (when there are those of us out there from humanities and arts backgrounds who want to learn to program, too). These topics take up little more than several paragraphs of the 500 or so pages, though, so if you're a novice, don't let them daunt you as they are the exception rather than the rule.

One thing I appreciated about this book was that full code is provided for 99% of the examples - you are never left with an example that won't compile because the author assumed you could guess the rest yourself. Moreover, whilst the examples and exercises do develop on code from previous chapters - in particular, you will develop a Calculator, Fraction, and Rectangle class in the first part of the book, and AddressCard and AddressBook classes in the second part - the author wisely avoids the build-one-big-program approach that some books adopt. This keeps things fresh and lively - you have to type in different examples, meaning you become familiar with the language through repetition, but at the same time you are doing different things in the examples themselves. Moreover the exercises at the end of each chapter are well judged - you are forced to think and look back through the book to recap on what you have learned, and they are difficult without being too difficult. (Don't skip them!)

In the second part of the book, the author moves on to the Foundation framework, which forms half of Cocoa (Cocoa also uses the AppKit for creating GUI's). You will learn how to use NSString, NSArray, NSDictionary (and their mutable counterparts) and a lot more. It builds on everything you've learned in Part One and provides a bridge between the basics of Objective-C and moving on to Cocoa. I expect that this part of the book especially will become dog-eared very quickly. To sum up, this book took me from knowing nothing about Ojbective-C to feeling as though I could write all the background code for the app I have in mind (ie. everything except the GUI). I am now just hoping that Hillegass's book on Cocoa is half as good.

A word of advice: I urge anybody who buys this book to print off the errata on the author's website (the address is given in the book), as there are a few minor errors that might stump you if you don't. Also, if you use Xcode instead of the command-line tools, you will need to delete the contents of the automatically-generated ..._Prefix.pch file as well as the #import line at the top of main.m each time you start a project (the book only specifies the latter). The prefix file caused me some headaches in one of the later chapters.

A lot of people on various forums say that this is the only book from which to learn Objective-C, and I can see why. In short, if you are reading this review you are probably thinking about learning Objective-C, either for its own sake or as groundwork for moving on to Cocoa. Which means that if you are reading this review, you should buy this book.

Excellent guide, not for the novice, 10 Sep 2008
I found this book to be an tremendous guide to Xcode 3, however it is not for the novice programmer or someone unfamiliar with objective c / Cocoa. It makes a perfect companion to Hillegass and fills in many of the blanks left by his (also excellent) book.

Good follow-on to COCOA programming for mac os x third edition, 05 Sep 2008
I've just started reading this and bought it after reading positive reviews on amazon.com. If you're an experienced developer and have read COCOA programming for mac os x third edition then this seems a good follow-on.

COCOA programming is the course notes and this book contains all the little things the instructor likes to mention to show how clever they are. The things that save time.

Some of it seems a little unnecessary (do we need to know full detail around compilation and builds?). But, still a good buy.

A bit disappointed, 20 Aug 2008
I bought this book looking for a good guide to objective c / cocoa programming in xcode 3. As a developer resource this book is pretty weak, as a guide to the tools in xcode it's great!

Spaghetti, 04 Mar 2006
Programmers refer to spaghetti code; this book is spaghetti writing.

It is practically useless for learning Applescript (even for a programmer like me) and the author wastes far too much time on pointless topics such as trying to impress the reader by showing why AppleScript is like LISP.

It’s the worst computer book I have ever read and I don’t recommend it as a first book on Applescript for anyone.

Exhaustive and Serious 'Warts and All' Reference., 04 Dec 2004
One thing is very clear: Matt Neuberg has really fathomed the depths of Apple's unique little scripting language in a more or less successful attempt to document all the quirks, gotchas and roadblocks that plague the average scripter. I would question how useful this would be for a beginner, but it is a superb reference, going into exhaustive detail on every level of the language and its use.

In fact, this book should have been called 'AppleScript Annoyances', because it really tackles the things which are likely to have you pulling your hair out, instead of pretending it is just going to be plain sailing.

The book opens with one of the most interesting chapters, showing the thought process that Matt goes through in writing a script to perform some tedious authoring task for the book itself (hooking up illustrations in framemaker). He goes out of his way to describe things that are skimmed over in most other books, without dumbing down: Just because AppleScript is a scripting language from Apple, doesn't mean that it is designed for idiots who can't work out how to use a two button mouse. Matt clearly has a healthy disrespect for the whole thing, which I find refreshing.

If you aren't put off by someone telling you how it really is (and it gets ugly sometimes: that chapter on scope... brrrr) then this book has all the answers. If you'd rather maintain the fantasy that everything in AppleScript makes perfect, intuitive sense, then this book will shake up your paradigms, but maybe make your life easier in the process.

Useful information presented in an unfocussed format., 15 Jul 2004
Unfortunately, this title doesn't live up to the standards typical of O'Reilly publications. The actual information content is good: the author definitely knows his stuff. But being a technical wizard doesn't impart the ability to write well. And it shows.

It takes until chapter 5 before the actual basic syntax of the language is discussed, Chapters 1-4 are busy talking about how flexible AppleScript is (very); how to think when tackling a problem (pretty much the same way as with any other language, thanks); and presenting customised solutions to problems that the author has experienced but that everyone else will view as utterly irrelevent. In addition to this, the author has trouble keeping his eltitist ego under control, with examples of calling scripts from Ruby, Python, Perl and Objective-C: in each case, essentially nothing more than shelling out to 'osascript'. His deliberations on 'broken' parts of AppleScript are pompous, as is his comparison of just about every feature to another language in his repertoire at every opportunity. In this book on Apple's scripting language, he appears keen to remind us mere mortals how many 'real' languages he knows.

The treatment of the AppleScript language and its quirks is thorough despite these criticisms, although the examples given are far from clear and the topics lack structure.

In summary, there's information in this book that you'll have a hard time finding anywhere else, but you'll have to work to extract it and, if you're anything like me, won't enjoy the process.

Best book to start with!, 27 Aug 2008
Awesome book, very approachable. For anyone coming to Mac programming for the first time, this is the book to start with.

Not as scary as I thought., 09 Jul 2008
I've had a project on the back burner for some time that required me to get to grips with Cocoa: no ifs, no buts. My timing wasn't ideal as XCode had gone from version 2 to version 3 without the documentation being updated, so I've been gingerly playing with Cocoa for about 5 months, but not really getting very far owing to the hurdles presented by the many interface changes.

Starting this book was nothing less than a revelation. I'm up to p77 of 418 pages and am surprised how quickly I'm getting to grips with tricky objective-c syntax (although it's really not too bad once you stop being scared of square brackets) and working with Interface Builder. The trickiest subject is memory management, and I must say I was rocking backwards and forwards gibbering 'this is hard, I'm not stupid' and clutching tightly to my degree certificate as Aaron recommends, but even this rather murky subject is beginning to sink in.

His writing style is very fluent and his many years of experience teaching people this technology is evident from the content. I'd shy away from saying this is a book for beginners, but if you've got a smattering of programming experience (PHP and a spot of Ruby is my background) and want to write good programs for the Rolls Royces of home computing, then this book has got to be at the top of your shopping list (assuming you've already bought a Mac that is! ).

Beware Xcode3 is here!, 08 Jul 2008
I've just bought the 2nd edition of this book (yellow cover) to save money. It seems to be a good book - clear and well laid out... BUT THERES A PROBLEM...
To use this book, you download Xcode3 tool from Apple.com (easy and free)

The 2nd Edition of the this book (Yellow cover) relates to Xcode2 and is badly out of date.. its not possible to follow the picture instructions since one of the key applications (interface builder) has completely changed.
So I would strongly advise to buy the 3rd Edition (grey/green cover)... even though its a packet more expensive... I guess this is the cost of evolution!

Unless of course you would like to buy my 2nd edition.. which I now can't use?? :D




The perfect starting point for learning Cocoa/Obj-C, 14 Jun 2008
As someone who made the switch to Macs/OS X just over 18-months ago, my interest in how the OS worked led me to buying this book. It's probably the best computer book I've bought full-stop.

This is THE BOOK you need to buy for a first-class authoritative introduction to Cocoa, the programming environment for OS X.

A programming book that doesn't put you to sleep, 27 Nov 2003
I've just finished reading "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" and have to say its amongst the best programming books I've ever read. It's aimed at people with C or Java experience who are new to objective C and Cocoa. The author demonstrates his skills as a teacher by delivering information in a progressive and easily digested manner. He begins by introducing the language and tools with a basic random number generator application and then builds on this with a number of tutorial applications. Topics covered include localisation, custom views, mouse and key events, fonts, images, printing, cut and paste, drag and drop, timers, sheets, printing, and creating your own Interface Builder Palates and controls. Cocoa is vast but this serves as an excellent starting block, covering the essentials and tasters required to progress deeper. Its very easy and enjoyable to read with challenges at the end of each chapter to help solidify your understanding. I read it from cover to cover which is unusual for me with a programming book.

I've been using OS X 10.3 which has had changes to the development tools since the book was written For example Project Builder is now called XCode, has code completion facilities and some of the menus have moved. However this didn't prove to be a problem and differences were rather obvious.

Can't really recommend it any higher!

out of date, 18 Jul 2008
the book refers to project builder rather than xcode. admits xcode was on the way when it was written, but says 'these instructions should work fine'. They didn't for me - the output from the first program never appears on screen. I've been googling for answers to this, and discovered the Apple documentation for xcode which I'll now have to study first.
Admittedly it does give instructions for compiling from terminal or windows if you prefer.

A great book!, 03 Nov 2006
A really great book for learning Objective-C. Buy it and you will not regret it. It contains small (but complete) Objective-C examples for better understanding the language concepts.

One of the truly great language tutorials, 02 Mar 2006
I first discovered Objective C in 1989 from Brad Cox's original book, but I wasn't impressed and learned C++ instead. Now I have an Apple and Objective C has won me round. I've read Hillegass and the Apple online help and that was OK, but this book really takes you into the language properly. It is very clearly explained and covers all the nooks and crannies that would otherwise trip you up - and had been tripping me up. There are very few great language tutors - and I say that as someone who has tried writing one, and know how hard it is! This is one of them.

Hey, where's the sixth star?, 19 Jul 2005
If it was possible I would have given this book six stars. It brought me into programming Objective C in a week (I tried to learn C many years ago, but got nowhere)! It's seriously the best book I have ever read on the topic of programming.

Kochan takes you through the fundamentals of Objective C programming in an easy and very straight-forward way. When writing my first 100% self-made programs I was stunned that most errors I made were mentioned as possible errors in the book.

The examples are also short. That's a big plus, because you can easily execute them in your head, keeping your level of understanding up.

Kochan also mentiones special fields that you MUST understand to continue. That's very nice, and probably saved me many times!

This book is a MUST BUY for anyone interested in programming in Objective C and especially for the Mac.

If only there were more programming books like this one..., 28 Jul 2004
This book is the most lucid book on programming I have ever read. Having a little (self-taught) experience in C, this book was recommended to me as a good foundation before trying to learn Cocoa for programming on Max OS X. I fully expected to be confronted with the sort of doorstopper that I would never finish, as has been the case with several C++ books; instead, I found a straightforward, uncluttered guide, written by somebody with a genuine talent for teaching.

The author takes the approach of not trying to teach you C first, and this has two advantages: first, if you have no C experience, you get started immediately learning Objective-C, so you don't get taught one thing only to be told to forget it later; second, if you do have some C experience, you are thrown into object-oriented programming right from the start. The explanations are consistently concise but clear, and I found myself getting through a chapter or two every night after work and feeling that I was learning something significant on every page. I read someone describe it elsewhere as "Teach Yourself Objective-C in 21 Days," except that this book really could live up to such a title. I wholeheartedly agree - it took me only three weeks to work through the whole book, including nearly all of the exercises. If, like me, you have seen terms such as "polymorphism", "inheritance", "instance method" and "subclassing" bandied around only to stare at them in mute incomprehension, this book is a revelation. The author introduces all such major concepts very gently - in fact they seem to creep up on you, so that by the time you are presented with the proper terminology you either already know what it means or find yourself exclaiming - as I did - "Oh, so that's all polymorphism is!"

My only gripe - and it is very minor - is that the explanations of bitwise operators and bitfields are near incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't have a programming background (or rather, they are explained well, but there is no indication of when you would ever use them), and the author does occasionally (though rarely) seem to assume that the reader has a solid maths background (when there are those of us out there from humanities and arts backgrounds who want to learn to program, too). These topics take up little more than several paragraphs of the 500 or so pages, though, so if you're a novice, don't let them daunt you as they are the exception rather than the rule.

One thing I appreciated about this book was that full code is provided for 99% of the examples - you are never left with an example that won't compile because the author assumed you could guess the rest yourself. Moreover, whilst the examples and exercises do develop on code from previous chapters - in particular, you will develop a Calculator, Fraction, and Rectangle class in the first part of the book, and AddressCard and AddressBook classes in the second part - the author wisely avoids the build-one-big-program approach that some books adopt. This keeps things fresh and lively - you have to type in different examples, meaning you become familiar with the language through repetition, but at the same time you are doing different things in the examples themselves. Moreover the exercises at the end of each chapter are well judged - you are forced to think and look back through the book to recap on what you have learned, and they are difficult without being too difficult. (Don't skip them!)

In the second part of the book, the author moves on to the Foundation framework, which forms half of Cocoa (Cocoa also uses the AppKit for creating GUI's). You will learn how to use NSString, NSArray, NSDictionary (and their mutable counterparts) and a lot more. It builds on everything you've learned in Part One and provides a bridge between the basics of Objective-C and moving on to Cocoa. I expect that this part of the book especially will become dog-eared very quickly. To sum up, this book took me from knowing nothing about Ojbective-C to feeling as though I could write all the background code for the app I have in mind (ie. everything except the GUI). I am now just hoping that Hillegass's book on Cocoa is half as good.

A word of advice: I urge anybody who buys this book to print off the errata on the author's website (the address is given in the book), as there are a few minor errors that might stump you if you don't. Also, if you use Xcode instead of the command-line tools, you will need to delete the contents of the automatically-generated ..._Prefix.pch file as well as the #import line at the top of main.m each time you start a project (the book only specifies the latter). The prefix file caused me some headaches in one of the later chapters.

A lot of people on various forums say that this is the only book from which to learn Objective-C, and I can see why. In short, if you are reading this review you are probably thinking about learning Objective-C, either for its own sake or as groundwork for moving on to Cocoa. Which means that if you are reading this review, you should buy this book.

Excellent guide, not for the novice, 10 Sep 2008
I found this book to be an tremendous guide to Xcode 3, however it is not for the novice programmer or someone unfamiliar with objective c / Cocoa. It makes a perfect companion to Hillegass and fills in many of the blanks left by his (also excellent) book.

Good follow-on to COCOA programming for mac os x third edition, 05 Sep 2008
I've just started reading this and bought it after reading positive reviews on amazon.com. If you're an experienced developer and have read COCOA programming for mac os x third edition then this seems a good follow-on.

COCOA programming is the course notes and this book contains all the little things the instructor likes to mention to show how clever they are. The things that save time.

Some of it seems a little unnecessary (do we need to know full detail around compilation and builds?). But, still a good buy.

A bit disappointed, 20 Aug 2008
I bought this book looking for a good guide to objective c / cocoa programming in xcode 3. As a developer resource this book is pretty weak, as a guide to the tools in xcode it's great!

Spaghetti, 04 Mar 2006
Programmers refer to spaghetti code; this book is spaghetti writing.

It is practically useless for learning Applescript (even for a programmer like me) and the author wastes far too much time on pointless topics such as trying to impress the reader by showing why AppleScript is like LISP.

It’s the worst computer book I have ever read and I don’t recommend it as a first book on Applescript for anyone.

Exhaustive and Serious 'Warts and All' Reference., 04 Dec 2004
One thing is very clear: Matt Neuberg has really fathomed the depths of Apple's unique little scripting language in a more or less successful attempt to document all the quirks, gotchas and roadblocks that plague the average scripter. I would question how useful this would be for a beginner, but it is a superb reference, going into exhaustive detail on every level of the language and its use.

In fact, this book should have been called 'AppleScript Annoyances', because it really tackles the things which are likely to have you pulling your hair out, instead of pretending it is just going to be plain sailing.

The book opens with one of the most interesting chapters, showing the thought process that Matt goes through in writing a script to perform some tedious authoring task for the book itself (hooking up illustrations in framemaker). He goes out of his way to describe things that are skimmed over in most other books, without dumbing down: Just because AppleScript is a scripting language from Apple, doesn't mean that it is designed for idiots who can't work out how to use a two button mouse. Matt clearly has a healthy disrespect for the whole thing, which I find refreshing.

If you aren't put off by someone telling you how it really is (and it gets ugly sometimes: that chapter on scope... brrrr) then this book has all the answers. If you'd rather maintain the fantasy that everything in AppleScript makes perfect, intuitive sense, then this book will shake up your paradigms, but maybe make your life easier in the process.

Useful information presented in an unfocussed format., 15 Jul 2004
Unfortunately, this title doesn't live up to the standards typical of O'Reilly publications. The actual information content is good: the author definitely knows his stuff. But being a technical wizard doesn't impart the ability to write well. And it shows.

It takes until chapter 5 before the actual basic syntax of the language is discussed, Chapters 1-4 are busy talking about how flexible AppleScript is (very); how to think when tackling a problem (pretty much the same way as with any other language, thanks); and presenting customised solutions to problems that the author has experienced but that everyone else will view as utterly irrelevent. In addition to this, the author has trouble keeping his eltitist ego under control, with examples of calling scripts from Ruby, Python, Perl and Objective-C: in each case, essentially nothing more than shelling out to 'osascript'. His deliberations on 'broken' parts of AppleScript are pompous, as is his comparison of just about every feature to another language in his repertoire at every opportunity. In this book on Apple's scripting language, he appears keen to remind us mere mortals how many 'real' languages he knows.

The treatment of the AppleScript language and its quirks is thorough despite these criticisms, although the examples given are far from clear and the topics lack structure.

In summary, there's information in this book that you'll have a hard time finding anywhere else, but you'll have to work to extract it and, if you're anything like me, won't enjoy the process.

Best for me, 13 Sep 2008
If you want to get productive with applescript in a commercial environment , without doing Applescript Studio (which I don't, because Applications from AS Studio are simply TOO SLOW for my commercial solutions) then do buy this book. What's 'rare' is this book is is very well written, comprehensive, contains no fluff and is aimed at YOUR productivity.. whether you have programming experience or not .... It even finds space to show how to write your own custom dialog boxes and link them to your scripts..Why?..Because the user interface is the only major failing still to be addressed within Applescript. Complex dialog boxes are just not 'do'able from compiled scripts..

This is the most useful book I have found on automating the Mac and Mac OS applications - period, no matter what project you have in mind. The only other thing you need is Script Debugger (a must), and to spend a modest amount of time looking at the dictionary of your 'target' application to be able to send commands to it and 'get' and 'set' values.

This is a real word book for real world people.

Best book to start with!, 27 Aug 2008
Awesome book, very approachable. For anyone coming to Mac programming for the first time, this is the book to start with.

Not as scary as I thought., 09 Jul 2008
I've had a project on the back burner for some time that required me to get to grips with Cocoa: no ifs, no buts. My timing wasn't ideal as XCode had gone from version 2 to version 3 without the documentation being updated, so I've been gingerly playing with Cocoa for about 5 months, but not really getting very far owing to the hurdles presented by the many interface changes.

Starting this book was nothing less than a revelation. I'm up to p77 of 418 pages and am surprised how quickly I'm getting to grips with tricky objective-c syntax (although it's really not too bad once you stop being scared of square brackets) and working with Interface Builder. The trickiest subject is memory management, and I must say I was rocking backwards and forwards gibbering 'this is hard, I'm not stupid' and clutching tightly to my degree certificate as Aaron recommends, but even this rather murky subject is beginning to sink in.

His writing style is very fluent and his many years of experience teaching people this technology is evident from the content. I'd shy away from saying this is a book for beginners, but if you've got a smattering of programming experience (PHP and a spot of Ruby is my background) and want to write good programs for the Rolls Royces of home computing, then this book has got to be at the top of your shopping list (assuming you've already bought a Mac that is! ).

Beware Xcode3 is here!, 08 Jul 2008
I've just bought the 2nd edition of this book (yellow cover) to save money. It seems to be a good book - clear and well laid out... BUT THERES A PROBLEM...
To use this book, you download Xcode3 tool from Apple.com (easy and free)

The 2nd Edition of the this book (Yellow cover) relates to Xcode2 and is badly out of date.. its not possible to follow the picture instructions since one of the key applications (interface builder) has completely changed.
So I would strongly advise to buy the 3rd Edition (grey/green cover)... even though its a packet more expensive... I guess this is the cost of evolution!

Unless of course you would like to buy my 2nd edition.. which I now can't use?? :D




The perfect starting point for learning Cocoa/Obj-C, 14 Jun 2008
As someone who made the switch to Macs/OS X just over 18-months ago, my interest in how the OS worked led me to buying this book. It's probably the best computer book I've bought full-stop.

This is THE BOOK you need to buy for a first-class authoritative introduction to Cocoa, the programming environment for OS X.

A programming book that doesn't put you to sleep, 27 Nov 2003
I've just finished reading "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" and have to say its amongst the best programming books I've ever read. It's aimed at people with C or Java experience who are new to objective C and Cocoa. The author demonstrates his skills as a teacher by delivering information in a progressive and easily digested manner. He begins by introducing the language and tools with a basic random number generator application and then builds on this with a number of tutorial applications. Topics covered include localisation, custom views, mouse and key events, fonts, images, printing, cut and paste, drag and drop, timers, sheets, printing, and creating your own Interface Builder Palates and controls. Cocoa is vast but this serves as an excellent starting block, covering the essentials and tasters required to progress deeper. Its very easy and enjoyable to read with challenges at the end of each chapter to help solidify your understanding. I read it from cover to cover which is unusual for me with a programming book.

I've been using OS X 10.3 which has had changes to the development tools since the book was written For example Project Builder is now called XCode, has code completion facilities and some of the menus have moved. However this didn't prove to be a problem and differences were rather obvious.

Can't really recommend it any higher!

out of date, 18 Jul 2008
the book refers to project builder rather than xcode. admits xcode was on the way when it was written, but says 'these instructions should work fine'. They didn't for me - the output from the first program never appears on screen. I've been googling for answers to this, and discovered the Apple documentation for xcode which I'll now have to study first.
Admittedly it does give instructions for compiling from terminal or windows if you prefer.

A great book!, 03 Nov 2006
A really great book for learning Objective-C. Buy it and you will not regret it. It contains small (but complete) Objective-C examples for better understanding the language concepts.

One of the truly great language tutorials, 02 Mar 2006
I first discovered Objective C in 1989 from Brad Cox's original book, but I wasn't impressed and learned C++ instead. Now I have an Apple and Objective C has won me round. I've read Hillegass and the Apple online help and that was OK, but this book really takes you into the language properly. It is very clearly explained and covers all the nooks and crannies that would otherwise trip you up - and had been tripping me up. There are very few great language tutors - and I say that as someone who has tried writing one, and know how hard it is! This is one of them.

Hey, where's the sixth star?, 19 Jul 2005
If it was possible I would have given this book six stars. It brought me into programming Objective C in a week (I tried to learn C many years ago, but got nowhere)! It's seriously the best book I have ever read on the topic of programming.

Kochan takes you through the fundamentals of Objective C programming in an easy and very straight-forward way. When writing my first 100% self-made programs I was stunned that most errors I made were mentioned as possible errors in the book.

The examples are also short. That's a big plus, because you can easily execute them in your head, keeping your level of understanding up.

Kochan also mentiones special fields that you MUST understand to continue. That's very nice, and probably saved me many times!

This book is a MUST BUY for anyone interested in programming in Objective C and especially for the Mac.

If only there were more programming books like this one..., 28 Jul 2004
This book is the most lucid book on programming I have ever read. Having a little (self-taught) experience in C, this book was recommended to me as a good foundation before trying to learn Cocoa for programming on Max OS X. I fully expected to be confronted with the sort of doorstopper that I would never finish, as has been the case with several C++ books; instead, I found a straightforward, uncluttered guide, written by somebody with a genuine talent for teaching.

The author takes the approach of not trying to teach you C first, and this has two advantages: first, if you have no C experience, you get started immediately learning Objective-C, so you don't get taught one thing only to be told to forget it later; second, if you do have some C experience, you are thrown into object-oriented programming right from the start. The explanations are consistently concise but clear, and I found myself getting through a chapter or two every night after work and feeling that I was learning something significant on every page. I read someone describe it elsewhere as "Teach Yourself Objective-C in 21 Days," except that this book really could live up to such a title. I wholeheartedly agree - it took me only three weeks to work through the whole book, including nearly all of the exercises. If, like me, you have seen terms such as "polymorphism", "inheritance", "instance method" and "subclassing" bandied around only to stare at them in mute incomprehension, this book is a revelation. The author introduces all such major concepts very gently - in fact they seem to creep up on you, so that by the time you are presented with the proper terminology you either already know what it means or find yourself exclaiming - as I did - "Oh, so that's all polymorphism is!"

My only gripe - and it is very minor - is that the explanations of bitwise operators and bitfields are near incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't have a programming background (or rather, they are explained well, but there is no indication of when you would ever use them), and the author does occasionally (though rarely) seem to assume that the reader has a solid maths background (when there are those of us out there from humanities and arts backgrounds who want to learn to program, too). These topics take up little more than several paragraphs of the 500 or so pages, though, so if you're a novice, don't let them daunt you as they are the exception rather than the rule.

One thing I appreciated about this book was that full code is provided for 99% of the examples - you are never left with an example that won't compile because the author assumed you could guess the rest yourself. Moreover, whilst the examples and exercises do develop on code from previous chapters - in particular, you will develop a Calculator, Fraction, and Rectangle class in the first part of the book, and AddressCard and AddressBook classes in the second part - the author wisely avoids the build-one-big-program approach that some books adopt. This keeps things fresh and lively - you have to type in different examples, meaning you become familiar with the language through repetition, but at the same time you are doing different things in the examples themselves. Moreover the exercises at the end of each chapter are well judged - you are forced to think and look back through the book to recap on what you have learned, and they are difficult without being too difficult. (Don't skip them!)

In the second part of the book, the author moves on to the Foundation framework, which forms half of Cocoa (Cocoa also uses the AppKit for creating GUI's). You will learn how to use NSString, NSArray, NSDictionary (and their mutable counterparts) and a lot more. It builds on everything you've learned in Part One and provides a bridge between the basics of Objective-C and moving on to Cocoa. I expect that this part of the book especially will become dog-eared very quickly. To sum up, this book took me from knowing nothing about Ojbective-C to feeling as though I could write all the background code for the app I have in mind (ie. everything except the GUI). I am now just hoping that Hillegass's book on Cocoa is half as good.

A word of advice: I urge anybody who buys this book to print off the errata on the author's website (the address is given in the book), as there are a few minor errors that might stump you if you don't. Also, if you use Xcode instead of the command-line tools, you will need to delete the contents of the automatically-generated ..._Prefix.pch file as well as the #import line at the top of main.m each time you start a project (the book only specifies the latter). The prefix file caused me some headaches in one of the later chapters.

A lot of people on various forums say that this is the only book from which to learn Objective-C, and I can see why. In short, if you are reading this review you are probably thinking about learning Objective-C, either for its own sake or as groundwork for moving on to Cocoa. Which means that if you are reading this review, you should buy this book.

Excellent guide, not for the novice, 10 Sep 2008
I found this book to be an tremendous guide to Xcode 3, however it is not for the novice programmer or someone unfamiliar with objective c / Cocoa. It makes a perfect companion to Hillegass and fills in many of the blanks left by his (also excellent) book.

Good follow-on to COCOA programming for mac os x third edition, 05 Sep 2008
I've just started reading this and bought it after reading positive reviews on amazon.com. If you're an experienced developer and have read COCOA programming for mac os x third edition then this seems a good follow-on.

COCOA programming is the course notes and this book contains all the little things the instructor likes to mention to show how clever they are. The things that save time.

Some of it seems a little unnecessary (do we need to know full detail around compilation and builds?). But, still a good buy.

A bit disappointed, 20 Aug 2008
I bought this book looking for a good guide to objective c / cocoa programming in xcode 3. As a developer resource this book is pretty weak, as a guide to the tools in xcode it's great!

Spaghetti, 04 Mar 2006
Programmers refer to spaghetti code; this book is spaghetti writing.

It is practically useless for learning Applescript (even for a programmer like me) and the author wastes far too much time on pointless topics such as trying to impress the reader by showing why AppleScript is like LISP.

It’s the worst computer book I have ever read and I don’t recommend it as a first book on Applescript for anyone.

Exhaustive and Serious 'Warts and All' Reference., 04 Dec 2004
One thing is very clear: Matt Neuberg has really fathomed the depths of Apple's unique little scripting language in a more or less successful attempt to document all the quirks, gotchas and roadblocks that plague the average scripter. I would question how useful this would be for a beginner, but it is a superb reference, going into exhaustive detail on every level of the language and its use.

In fact, this book should have been called 'AppleScript Annoyances', because it really tackles the things which are likely to have you pulling your hair out, instead of pretending it is just going to be plain sailing.

The book opens with one of the most interesting chapters, showing the thought process that Matt goes through in writing a script to perform some tedious authoring task for the book itself (hooking up illustrations in framemaker). He goes out of his way to describe things that are skimmed over in most other books, without dumbing down: Just because AppleScript is a scripting language from Apple, doesn't mean that it is designed for idiots who can't work out how to use a two button mouse. Matt clearly has a healthy disrespect for the whole thing, which I find refreshing.

If you aren't put off by someone telling you how it really is (and it gets ugly sometimes: that chapter on scope... brrrr) then this book has all the answers. If you'd rather maintain the fantasy that everything in AppleScript makes perfect, intuitive sense, then this book will shake up your paradigms, but maybe make your life easier in the process.

Useful information presented in an unfocussed format., 15 Jul 2004
Unfortunately, this title doesn't live up to the standards typical of O'Reilly publications. The actual information content is good: the author definitely knows his stuff. But being a technical wizard doesn't impart the ability to write well. And it shows.

It takes until chapter 5 before the actual basic syntax of the language is discussed, Chapters 1-4 are busy talking about how flexible AppleScript is (very); how to think when tackling a problem (pretty much the same way as with any other language, thanks); and presenting customised solutions to problems that the author has experienced but that everyone else will view as utterly irrelevent. In addition to this, the author has trouble keeping his eltitist ego under control, with examples of calling scripts from Ruby, Python, Perl and Objective-C: in each case, essentially nothing more than shelling out to 'osascript'. His deliberations on 'broken' parts of AppleScript are pompous, as is his comparison of just about every feature to another language in his repertoire at every opportunity. In this book on Apple's scripting language, he appears keen to remind us mere mortals how many 'real' languages he knows.

The treatment of the AppleScript language and its quirks is thorough despite these criticisms, although the examples given are far from clear and the topics lack structure.

In summary, there's information in this book that you'll have a hard time finding anywhere else, but you'll have to work to extract it and, if you're anything like me, won't enjoy the process.

Best for me, 13 Sep 2008
If you want to get productive with applescript in a commercial environment , without doing Applescript Studio (which I don't, because Applications from AS Studio are simply TOO SLOW for my commercial solutions) then do buy this book. What's 'rare' is this book is is very well written, comprehensive, contains no fluff and is aimed at YOUR productivity.. whether you have programming experience or not .... It even finds space to show how to write your own custom dialog boxes and link them to your scripts..Why?..Because the user interface is the only major failing still to be addressed within Applescript. Complex dialog boxes are just not 'do'able from compiled scripts..

This is the most useful book I have found on automating the Mac and Mac OS applications - period, no matter what project you have in mind. The only other thing you need is Script Debugger (a must), and to spend a modest amount of time looking at the dictionary of your 'target' application to be able to send commands to it and 'get' and 'set' values.

This is a real word book for real world people.

There's more to programming a Macintosh than Cocoa, 31 Jul 2007

Despite what the previous reviewer says, this book is an excellent source of information on programming the lower-level parts of the Macintosh operating system. Containing a great deal of information that can't be found easily elsewhere, there are plenty of examples and discussions on compilation, linking, memory management, debugging, file and network I/O, security and threading. Although you can find similar information on other unixes elsewhere, the underpinning of the Macintosh - Darwin - is quite different from Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris. The only chapter which isn't Mac specific is about using subversion, which is a slightly odd inclusion in this book.

Taken together with a book on Cocoa programming, you'd be covering a good chunk of the Macintosh operating system and understand the underpinnings of this complex topic just that little bit more.

Should be titled 'Fundamental Unix Programming', 05 May 2007
After reading 'Cocoa programming for Mac OS X', which is also from the people at Big Nerd Ranch, I was disappointed when this book arrived. What I was hoping for was a continuation of the extremely good, if a little little lightweight, Mac specific information in 'Cocoa Programming'. This is not that book.

Very little information in this book is Mac OS X specific. It deals with the Unix foundations of OS X. Foundations which are worth knowing, but which are dealt with in books from 20 years ago. As a programmer coming from a Unix background this book is nearly useless.

Sections of the book deal with subjects like memory management using malloc() and friends, multiprocessing using fork() and IPC using unix sockets. All of these are areas that Apple has worked hard to leave behind. Yes, those mechanisms are still there. Yes, it's good to know about them. No, don't write programs with them.

Maybe I bought the book thinking it was something else, but that doesn't change the fact that it breaks very little new ground. Get it only if Unix programming is new to you, and probably then only if you're writing programs that can not (for some reason) take advantage of the higher level APIs such as Cocoa.

Best book to start with!, 27 Aug 2008
Awesome book, very approachable. For anyone coming to Mac programming for the first time, this is the book to start with.

Not as scary as I thought., 09 Jul 2008
I've had a project on the back burner for some time that required me to get to grips with Cocoa: no ifs, no buts. My timing wasn't ideal as XCode had gone from version 2 to version 3 without the documentation being updated, so I've been gingerly playing with Cocoa for about 5 months, but not really getting very far owing to the hurdles presented by the many interface changes.

Starting this book was nothing less than a revelation. I'm up to p77 of 418 pages and am surprised how quickly I'm getting to grips with tricky objective-c syntax (although it's really not too bad once you stop being scared of square brackets) and working with Interface Builder. The trickiest subject is memory management, and I must say I was rocking backwards and forwards gibbering 'this is hard, I'm not stupid' and clutching tightly to my degree certificate as Aaron recommends, but even this rather murky subject is beginning to sink in.

His writing style is very fluent and his many years of experience teaching people this technology is evident from the content. I'd shy away from saying this is a book for beginners, but if you've got a smattering of programming experience (PHP and a spot of Ruby is my background) and want to write good programs for the Rolls Royces of home computing, then this book has got to be at the top of your shopping list (assuming you've already bought a Mac that is! ).

Beware Xcode3 is here!, 08 Jul 2008
I've just boug