mekentosj.com | Learning Cocoa

How it all began...: March 24th, 2001, Mac OS X 1.0 was released to the public, and brought many things unseen to the Mac platform before, among which a world-class set of programming tools. And best of all, it was completely free. Unfortunately, we had no programming skills whatsoever. Being interested, and having tried to start a few times, we had desperately failed each time, stumbling upon this utterly steep learning curve. But somehow, the release of Mac OS X in combination with all the talking about this great Cocoa programming environment and free tools made us feel that now was the time to really go for it. We bought a great book on the C programming language just to learn the basics. Soon after, we downloaded the developer tools, and made the switch to Objective-C with help of O'Reilly's Cocoa book. After the obligatory "Hello world" and "Currency Converter" samples, things really started to take off, and soon after we finished our first program. LabAssistant was launched in the summer of 2001, only a few months after the C programming book was bought. If you have ever thought to start programming, now is the time!

Learning Cocoa: Learning Cocoa is all about C, Objective-C to be precise. This language adds some extensions to the well known C language which makes it a powerful object oriented programming language. Although contrary to what you might think at first, it really isn't that difficult to learn actually. Of course a basic knowledge of C is a prerequisite, but once you have that experience things can go fast. Really fast! Remember we didn't have any programming experience when we started only a few years ago.
Recommended Books: Move mouse over books to learn more...; It all began by simply buying a good book on the C language, followed by the only book about Cocoa available at that time. Lucky for you many terrific books for beginners have become available since then. From personal experience we can absolutely recommend these four that will help you take the large hurdle at the beginning, and get you going in no time.

Apple Developer Connect & XCode: One of the first things we urge you to do is sign up with Apple's Developer Connection (ADC) for a free (!) online account. With it you can download Apple's excellent programming tools, which installs XCode, loads of documentation, sample code, and much more. It gives you all the stuff you need to make the next killer app. More information and everything else you wish to know about developing on the Mac platform can be found on Apple's website:; developer.apple.com >>
Recommended Websites: Besides a good book there are numerous terrific tutorials, samples and resources on the web that we advice you to check out. These are some of our favorites:; Cocoabuilder.com - A perfect interface to both Cocoa mailinglists; MacDevCenter - O'Reilly's Mac Developer page; Cocoadev.com - WikiWikiWeb site for the developer community; CocoaDevCentral - A site with great tutorials; Cocoa FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions; Stepwise - A classic site on Objective-C; Hyperjeff - Cocoa Literature; Reference Library - The official Cocoa Reference Library

Mac OS X Only!?: Many people have asked us why we don't make our programs for Windows as well. The answer is easy, we love Mac OS X. We rather use the time and effort it would take to port them to expand our current programs and build new ones. In addition, we feel that our programs would never get the look-and-feel they have on a Mac if they would have to run on Windows. So people, stop asking us, it simply won't happen...
WWDC: One of the fastest ways to learn Cocoa would be to visit the WWDC, Apple's yearly Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. From personal experience we can assure you it is worth every penny spent. You get loads of great sessions on about every aspect of Mac programming, meet all the people behind our great platform, and learn as much in a week as you would otherwise learn in a year. Greatly recommended, and we're looking for sponsors for next year already...; Mekentosj at WWDC >>
Big Nerd Ranch: At the WWDC we met Aaron Hillegass, the guy who wrote two of the books we feature on this page. Aaron runs the Big Nerd Ranch, a learning center where he teaches all there is to know about Cocoa in one week. If we only had the money...
Be sure to check out both his excellent books and his website:; Big Nerd Ranch >>
Community Service: We couldn't have made it without the help of the great mac developer community. Make sure you sign up with the cocoa-dev mailinglist, if you ever have a question you can't solve there are plenty of people willing to help you. Every time we had a question, even if it was in the middle of the night, someone had the answer, and usually within half an hour! This community is one of the reasons why programming in Cocoa on the Mac is so much fun!; Cocoa-dev list >>
Any questions?: If you have any questions or want to ask us for advice, don't hesitate to ask! Send us an email or, if we are online, use the iChat icon on top of this page. We're more than happy to help you out!; Send us an email...