Re: Best beginner's book

FROM : Chuck Toporek
DATE : Fri Jan 10 08:57:04 2003

Just a question:

Are you referring to "Learning Cocoa" -- the first edition published in
May 2000 -- or "Learning Cocoa with Objective-C" -- the second edition
published in September 2002
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learncocoa2/)?

Chuck

On Friday, January 10, 2003, at 12:38  AM, Jim Jaeger wrote:

>> Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:43:18 -0500
>> Subject: Best beginner's book
>> From: "Susan G. Conger" <<email_removed>>
>> To: <email_removed>
>>
>> I have been a Mac developer for over 15 years and I am trying to pick
>> up Cocoa.  I have Learning Cocoa from O'Reilly but I don't really like
>> it.  I am looking for suggestions on what the best book is for
>> beginners.

>
>
> I'm a beginner at Cocoa and essentially a beginner at programming,
> having last programmed seriously about twenty years ago.
>
> I bought and tried _Learning_Cocoa from O'Reilly. I gave up on that
> book at page 147. Maybe it was too dense for me--or I was too dense
> for that book. Someday, I'll probably try it again.
>
> I bought and worked my way through _Cocoa_Programming_for_Mac_OSX from
> Addison Wessley. I found Hillegass's writing style more to my liking
> than _Learning... I had the feeling that Hillegass not only knew what
> he was writing about, but he was having fun while he did it. The book
> was worth the price, and the result worth the effort.
>
> At the moment, I'm at page 476 (of about 600 pp.) while working
> through _Building_Cocoa_Applications_ from O'Reilly. My feeling is
> that this book was rushed to press. I'm gratified that Hillegass's
> book was published first, because I think the errors in _Building...
> would have frustrated me, if it had been first. Garfield and Mahoney
> need to get a second edition on the market before I would recommend
> their book. That said, as an experienced programmer, you might be able
> to tolerate the errors that we less current folks can't. I printed the
> errata for _Learning... (about 24 pages) and find that, so far, I can
> work my way through a problem (I've been stymied for two days at
> p.476, though), but it's not a credit to the book to have to do this.
> The book is, on the other hand, a deeper look into Cocoa than the
> Hillegass book.
>
> In summary: The Hillegass book is where I think a beginner should
> start, but an experienced programmer might be able to tolerate the
> Garfield and Mahoney book.  _Learning_Cocoa_ may be a worthwhile
> reference book, someday.
>
> If it's important to you, neither _Building_Cocoa... or
> _Cocoa_Programming_ fell apart in my hands when I tried to use them,
> as _Learning_Cocoa_ did.
>
> jim
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