Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (3rd Edition)
by Aaron Hillegass
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Book Summary Information
Author: Aaron HillegassEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-15
ISBN: 0321503619
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Accessories:
- Programming in Objective-C
- Xcode 3 Unleashed
- Cocoa Design Patterns
- Programming in Objective-C 2.0 (2nd Edition)
- The iPhone Developer's Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone 3.0 SDK (2nd Edition)
Book Reviews of Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (3rd Edition)
Book Review: The Rachael Ray of Mac programming
Summary: 2 Stars
If you have zero programming experience whatsoever and want to dip your toes in the shallow end of the Cocoa pool then I can see how picking this book up might seem like a watershed experience for you. Aside from that, I'm not sure who its target audience is as there is little congruence between its accolades and its content.
There is nothing, repeat, NOTHING, in here that is not in Apple's free tutorials and documentation. While I too strongly prefer physical objects I can hold and highlight to web pages on a screen, the fact that you get little more than a brief glance at what little material is actually covered will drive you to the electronic docs in the end anyway. What was the point again? Oh, right, Hillegass needs money since he's not really producing marketable software anywhere that I can see.
I was "taught" Cocoa by former NeXT employees much like Mr. Hillegass while doing time at Apple, and while none of them wore goofy looking hats in order to assert their wholly contrived notions of in-your-face individuality, all of the expats I encountered shared some uncannily common traits:
1. They'd never actually used OS X let alone written any commercial software for it, yet there they were telling Mac developers how to do their jobs. I'm sure this has changed since then and at least a few of them have actually had an opportunity to use a Mac once or twice.
2. They don't like learning anything new and will vehemently defend the quality of any random piece of garbage they wrote back in 1988 regardless of how terrible it is.
3. Any time their code is actually proven to be terrible they will fall back on the "fixing it now would be impossible because I'm the only one who really understands it and I don't have time" method of preserving job security.
4. They (not so) secretly think they're better than anyone at Apple who didn't come over on the buyout Mayflower despite the fact that their company and all of its products failed miserably and like to stage numerous petty rebellions against commonly accepted Apple conventions to make sure everybody knows how cool they are.
I won't say that any of the code in here is downright terrible--while it does tend to lack any notion of error handling, very little of it actually DOES anything so how bad can it be?--but I will say that the UIs Hillegass slaps together violate both Apple HIG and common sense in more ways than you could ever want to shake a stick at, making me wonder whether he's still too busy raging against the machine to follow any pesky "rules" or just legally blind. Photos of the man's attire and tattoos have prevented me from completely ruling out the latter, but who knows.
While this level of aesthetic slop might be perfectly excusable in a teenager's blog about TkInter or something, the post-buyout Interface Builder draws all these pretty blue lines on the screen for you so you know when window elements are properly aligned; lines which you really have to go out of your way to ignore. You're not putting on a slideshow for a bunch of guys from a Bangalorean trade school here, you're preparing materials for publication in a book you plan on charging a lot of money for. How about you at least pretend to care for showmanship's sake rather than foster horrendously bad habits amongst those who mysteriously find you worthy of emulation? Writing a lame, overpriced book certainly isn't a crime, but this one in particular can be directly blamed for much of the nonsense that makes every Cocoa-centric mailing list and discussion board completely unreadable due to the manner in which both it and its author are marketed. As such, it annoys me on a near daily basis by proxy.
And as for that exciting all new material in the exciting all new 3rd edition, it's like a really, really bad joke (not to be confused with the numerous other really, really bad jokes which liberally pepper Hillegass' prose [yeah you're no Elaine Boosler there, buddy]). Especially weak is the chapter on CoreAnimation which will teach you nothing more than the fact that there's a class called CALayer that can maybe do some kinda cool stuff if you can manage to think up a slightly less contrived example than the author did after spending what must have been nearly 10 minutes pilfering Apple's documentation (did I mention that it's free yet? Because it is.).
Now I do have to admit that I am truly envious of Mr. Hillegass' ability to schmooze so effectively that lazy people actually believe his watered down version of the information they all have sitting right in front of them is worth its weight in gold. The day he writes a book on exploiting others' weaknesses for profit I'll be the first in line to buy a signed copy because I have absolutely none of these clearly valuable people skills. Until then I would suggest that he focus on taking his final challenge himself and produce a brand new Cocoa application that other people actually use if he wants to be seen as an authority figure on the subject. WebObjects doesn't count.
Summary of Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (3rd Edition)
The best-selling introduction to Cocoa, once again updated to cover the latest Mac programming technologies, and still enthusiastically recommended by experienced Mac OS X developers.
?Aaron?s book is the gold standard for Mac OS X programming books?beautifully written, and thoughtfully sculpted. The best book on Leopard development.?
?Scott Stevenson, www.theocacao.com
?This is the first book I?d recommend for anyone wanting to learn Cocoa from scratch. Aaron?s one of the few (perhaps only) full-time professional Cocoa instructors, and his teaching experience shows in the book.?
?Tim Burks, software developer and creator of the Nu programming language, www.programming.nu
?If you?re a UNIX or Windows developer who picked up a Mac OS X machine recently in hopes of developing new apps or porting your apps to Mac users, this book should be strongly considered as one of your essential reference and training tomes.?
?Kevin H. Spencer, Apple Certified Technical Coordinator
If you?re developing applications for Mac OS X, Cocoa® Programming for Mac® OS X, Third Edition, is the book you?ve been waiting to get your hands on. If you?re new to the Mac environment, it?s probably the book you?ve been told to read first. Covering the bulk of what you need to know to develop full-featured applications for OS X, written in an engaging tutorial style, and thoroughly class-tested to assure clarity and accuracy, it is an invaluable resource for any Mac programmer.
Specifically, Aaron Hillegass introduces the three most commonly used Mac developer tools: Xcode, Interface Builder, and Instruments. He also covers the Objective-C language and the major design patterns of Cocoa. Aaron illustrates his explanations with exemplary code, written in the idioms of the Cocoa community, to show you how Mac programs should be written. After reading this book, you will know enough to understand and utilize Apple?s online documentation for your own unique needs. And you will know enough to write your own stylish code.
Updated for Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, this revised edition includes coverage of Xcode 3, Objective-C 2, Core Data, the garbage collector, and CoreAnimation.
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