Learning to Program

[supanatral]

I have a strictly java programming background and I would like to learn how to program for a mac. I looked into cocoa but then when I'm reading the introduction its telling me that you can program in c, c++, and something else and cocoa supports it or something to that effect. The issue is that I don't know C. Also, I started trying it out but I got confused by xCode's interface and how its setup. Where do you suggest I start?

 

[Satcomer]

For geek programming books look at O'Rielly. Plus take a look at the Coca Dev Central.

 

[Mikuro]

Cocoa programming is primarily done with Objective-C. Java used to be supported, but now it is deprecated, and now Python and Ruby are apparently supported now. I haven't experimented using any other languages with Cocoa, so I don't know the extent of the support.

I recommend reading Seth Roby's C is for Cocoa article on MacDevCenter. It introduces C in the context of Cocoa and Objective-C (Objective-C is just like C, but with a few additions). There are some other tutorials on that site which will probably help you get going.

The hardest part of getting started in Cocoa for me was coming to grips with Interface Builder, which is NOT intuitive (even less so with Leopard's version!), and the complete separation of interface and code. Since I came from REALbasic, having to jump through hoops just to hook a button up to some code drove me nuts — and quite frankly, it still does. But that's the way it is with Cocoa.