# I want to make Cocoa apps. Assume I know NOTHING!



## alexachucarro (Mar 1, 2003)

After seeing a few apps greated by geeks that are relly cool. I want to be geeky and make cocoa apps myself.

Does anyone know of a method that could help someone starting from zero? I know nothing about anything and i want to start from the beginning.

Searched the threads to no avail : (

Alex


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## Captain Code (Mar 1, 2003)

You can try starting with Apple's examples, which you can get by going to http://developer.apple.com

You'll also need to install the latest developer tools, which you can get for free at that website as well.

Another thing you can do is buy a good book.  There are some mentioned on this forum already in similar threads.


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## alexachucarro (Mar 1, 2003)

I was looking somewhere and a few books were mentioned but a lot were over 12 months old, has Cocoa advanced much in that time, would learning Cocoa for 10.1.4 be a bit confusing when programming for 10.2.4?

Please could you suggest a few books?

Thanks

Alex


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## RacerX (Mar 1, 2003)

*This* may be a good place to get started.


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## alexachucarro (Mar 1, 2003)

Thanks for that, I hope it's not just an HTML editor guide. 

I want to make apps that mess about with Bluetooth ; )

Thanks


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## Giaguara (Mar 1, 2003)

I ordered Hilleglass: Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X from Amazon. It's good and clear, but it will help you a lot if you know some Objective-C. There are some others - from O'Reilly (editor) - which are good as well. I'd suggest also finding some oblective-c guides.  

Here  is the url of the Hilleglass book. It has some exercises online and .. well even being written over a year ago, that's a good start. 

There were offers in Amazon and Amazon.co.uk - very probably ordering your copy from there will cost you less that ordering it to your local bookstore.


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## kainjow (Mar 7, 2003)

To learn Cocoa well, you NEED to buy a book. There is just not enough basic information on the internet that is helpful for you to learn Cocoa. I have bought almost all of the Cocoa and Objective-C books and I picked it up pretty quickly (I did program in REALbasic and other languages before I did Cocoa). So buy the books, do the examples, then once you get very familiar, you can use the online documentation and online examples on other sites.

If you want more info, feel free to email me: kainjow@kainjow.com

Good luck.

(My program Pod2Go was my first major Cocoa app and it's done pretty well. I've learned a lot from it.)


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## RacerX (Mar 7, 2003)

> _Originally posted by kainjow _
> *To learn Cocoa well, you NEED to buy a book. There is just not enough basic information on the internet that is helpful for you to learn Cocoa... *



I'm not sure that is exactly true. What you need to know is where to go and who to talk to and where the people who have been doing this stuff for years (as in longer than Mac OS X as been around) have been going to get their information. This has been a very supportive community because for most of it's existance no publisher would even consider printing a book on the subject.

I pointed out a good starter app, which you may have noticed was at StepWise. There is a book out based on this series of articles and tutorials: Vermont Recipes, which is also at Stepwise (I think your seeing a small trend here). StepWise has been around much longer than Mac OS X and has always been the number one resource of developers of Cocoa (aka Yellow Box, aka OpenStep) applications.

So, now that you have started writing some apps, where do you go when you run into problems? Who do you ask for help? Again, what you need is help from people who have been doing this stuff for years. Those people are at the Omni Group's Mailing list. This list was started long before Mac OS X and is one of the best resources for information on the net. Have a question? Search the list. Can't find the answer that way... mail in your request and someone is sure to be able to help.


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## kainjow (Mar 8, 2003)

Well, let's just say it's a lot easier to learn through a book (unless you can learn online better. Maybe it just depends on the person.)


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