macs

This book takes an unusual approach that some people seem to like and others don't. The entire book is devoted to building a single Cocoa application, step by step. Each step builds on what has come before, so you really can't jump around in the book at all. And the book is entirely example-driven; there is very little text talking about higher-level concepts, principles and design. If you learn best by example, and you want to see a large, high-quality application in Cocoa built from the ground up, then this book might be very good for you. Others will probably find it frustrating.

This is an excellent programming cook book. Armed with this book and some conceptual background, the world of Cocoa Programming is open to you. This book is not suitable for people who have never programmed before, but you don't need a computer science degree to use it either. The individual recipes are each valuable and explain both the "hows" and "whys" of common Cocoa programming techniques. The book has a "learn by doing" philosophy. The recipes in this book are the best and most comprehensive tutorials available for Cocoa programming, but they are long. Plan to spend several hours working on each recipe. Once mastered, you will be able to modify and reuse each recipe to develop countless applications. This book will give you a sense of how the pieces of Cocoa fit together so that you will be able to more easily approach new programming topics.

Anyone serious about learning Cocoa should consider adding Cocoa Recipes to their reference arsenal. I have found it to be a valuable source of information that extends the essential Cocoa books authored by Hillegasse, and Anguish et al. Cocoa Recipes discusses in depth a number of areas not discussed extensively in other titles. I found the discussion on formatters very useful. Also, Cocoa Recipes provides an additional perspective in relation to core cocoa programming tasks. Best of all, it provides many practical, easy to adopt code examples. If you are serious about learning Cocoa, you will get something out of this book. Cocoa Recipes is best read after you have read one or two of the Cocoa books mentioned above. It will help round out your knowledge and will become a valuable reference source.