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Title: Learning Cocoa with Objective-C, 2nd Edition by James Duncan Davidson, Inc. Apple Computer ISBN: 0-596-00301-3 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 20 September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.93 (14 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: This book does not leave you with more than examples.
Comment: I have seen what is to be had from a good programming book in Steve Oualline's Practical C++ Programming (O'Reilly). One who works himself through a book such as this will find that he is able to move immediately beyond the scope of the textual examples into programs which he himself finds useful. The material is well-taught, in normal English, and confusing issues are solved by reviewing the text. Unfortunately, this is hardly the case with Learning Cocoa. Having read this book, I find that J.D. Davidson explains things poorly, speaks too often in a manner which some might consider advertisement of Apple's tools, and does not prepare one to apply what he has learned to his own purposes. I could not, as a result, recommend this book to anyone of my background (I learned to program C++ by Oualline's book, then came to Learning Cocoa).
Davidson has a habit of "teaching" Cocoa in the following manner:
1. Create a project named x.
2. create these header and implementation files.
3. Copy the code I have written here in this book.
4. Read the explanation line-by-line which I have given you.
The result of this system is that Davidson has successfully explained why his example programs run, but he has utterly failed to teach the reader to create a program which applies the topics he just touched on. Line-by-line explanations are only useful if they serve the purpose of abstraction, to create a model which can then be applied to a specific case. Davidson's explanations serve only his individual examples, as is obvious when a beginning programmer attempts to create his own application.
It is also altogether too clear that Davidson is working under Apple's hand. At every opportunity, the phrase, "Apple has provided," or, "Apple's engineers created," is concatenated at the front end of a sentence for no reason other than to irritate the reader with what amounts to advertisement in a textbook. For example, at the beginning of the novel, Davidson attempts to explain objects. What does he use as a decidedly abstract example? An "Apple" iPod. This may seem nitpicky at first, but I find it very distracting and detrimental to the content.
Lastly, it bears mentioning that this novel does not provide one with the means to move on. Halfway through the text, I was still not able to create my own programs, even of the most rudimentary kind, without intense difficulty and little help from the novel. Re-reading explanations is not helpful, as few of them are made abstract enough to assist a body in any of his own pursuits. Davidson must have understood this when he created the novel, because none of the exercises he provides go beyond one-line modifications. In effect, this book provides no semblance of applicable knowledge.
A book that provides neither content nor focus nor a place from which to move on does not deserve the exhaustive hours required to read it. I have not yet explored other alternatives in the Cocoa programming world, however I strongly suggest that others look elsewhere.
Rating: 4
Summary: One of the best Cocoa books available...
Comment: This book was one of the best programming books that I have ever seen. While it had a lot of basics, it went completely through the Cocoa application development. I completed the entire books in less than a week work on this part time. The examples were complete and had very view mistakes.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get started programming for OS X using Cocoa. This book si good for almost any level programmer.
The only reason I did not give it 5 stars was because it had a couple of mis-prints and could have added a few more chapters going into more deoth in a few areas...
Rating: 3
Summary: A good book, but not the best book
Comment: A very popular book, and greatly improved in its second edition. Very example and tutorial oriented; somewhat out of date at this point, however. Helps the user learn Interface Builder, ProjectBuilder and Objective-C, too. Possibly a bit shallow to get the reader writing their own Cocoa programs from scratch, but a good introduction. Ultimately, probably not as recommended for a first purchase as Cocoa Programming by Scott Anguish or Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass.
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Title: Building Cocoa Applications : A Step by Step Guide by Simson Garfinkel, Michael K. Mahoney ISBN: 0596002351 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $44.95 |
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Title: Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass ISBN: 0201726831 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 03 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $44.99 |
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Title: Objective-C Pocket Reference by Andrew Duncan ISBN: 0596004230 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Cocoa Programming by Scott Anguish, Erik Buck, Donald Yacktman ISBN: 0672322307 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 20 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
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Title: Programming in Objective C by Stephen Kochan ISBN: 0672325861 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 10 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
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