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|  | Author: Stephen G. Kochan
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
List Price: $44.99
Buy New: $24.97
as of 11/22/2009 17:29 CST details
You Save: $20.02 (44%)
New (46) Used (14) from $24.97
Seller: new_books_today
Rating:  73 reviews
Sales Rank: 2842
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Pages: 624
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 7 x 1.6
ISBN: 0321566157
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.117
EAN: 9780321566157
ASIN: 0321566157
Publication Date: January 8, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: All orders ship same business day via standard shipping (USPS Media Mail) if received by 1 PM CST. We do not ship to APO/FPO addresses.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 73
 Kochan's Objective-C September 12, 2009
J. Blafford (NY USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Great book. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to program in objective-C. I myself have already ben programming in c and c++ for a while now and this book is for people who know either nothing about programming, or who have a substantial background in it. This is even a great book about object oriented programming for someone who is used to the C style of procedural programming. 5 stars.
Great must have book for beginners September 9, 2009
Wayne Hawkins (New Zealand)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have been coding for over 15 years. My background is with Visual Basic and working with ASP.net
Being keen to jump into writing games for the iPhone/iPod it was clear from the start that I had to learn Objective-C. This was the first book to take me on the journey to writing games.
I am now just over 1/2 way in this book and enjoying every page. It is very well laid out and is a book you read from start to end rather than jumpig in and out of chapters. The writer explains things clear and stays to the topic at hand and build from other chapters. The samples are easy to type up and are to the point. You can also download the code from the website if you do not want to type then into Xcode.
I give this book a 5 star as I cannot fault it. Some chapters I have found hard but this is not from the delivery of the topics but more me losing my way. Returning to the start of the chapter and reading it 2 or 3 times I do finally click to what is being said. I have also used a website to help in the C programming side of things (http://www.cprogramming.com). I have found with learning a bit on C that this has also help with Object-C.
This book is a must have for anyone learning to code for Apple OS-X or iPods. Well done.
A rare feat: comprehensive and concise and clear! September 4, 2009
Dream a little
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is one of the best books on programming that I have read and certainly is the best one on objective c that is out there . I have skimmed a couple and I'm pretty picky. This one is the clear winner. Why? It's clear, concise, and comprehensive. First, it's clear. I'm a wannabe computer geek but unfortunately am not talented at it. So for those of you out there who rely on good, sharp writing that anticipates readers' questions and leads you through, this is the book for you. Second it's concise. It's rare to be clear and concise. Usually one has to give. But not here. Last, it's actually comprehensive. The reason for its length is not its use of jargon, but it just covers everything. I like that you can clearly see when there's stuff that you're not going to need. In one of the chapters, he says skip it.
Who should read this book? If you have never seen a line of code before, I think that this book will work for you. It's that accessible. There are times when he says a few topics that would have made no sense had I not had some programming knowledge, but by and large these are few and far between. It's just that the author aims to leave no stone unturned. For those with some programming knowledge, this is absolutely the book for you. I found myself reading stuff that I normally wouldn't even read (like loops and if/then) sections just b/c I knew his explanation might tell me something new about these things that I had never seen before. For seasoned programmers, this book can absolutely act as a reference.
Now let's cut to the chase. Most people here are buying this book b/c they want to understand the iphone 3.0 apress book and build the next killer iphone app. Well unfortunately, that iphone 3 development book requires objective C knowledge first. So that's why you're considering buying this book. I think it's well worth it and I aim confident, supremely confident, that the time spent in this book will pay dividends compared to trying to wing it in objective C. It's the measure twice, cut once philosophy. The icing on the cake is that there is an entire part of the book devoted to iphone programming, about 50 pages' worth at least.
In short, great job, man!
 O.K...Not Great...The Video Course is Terrible September 4, 2009
Redrocks Coder (San Diego, CA)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book is just O.K. but given the scarce supply of books on Objective-C it's probably one of the best available. Unfortunately however I also paid for the LiveLessons video training for this book (Available at SafariBooksOnline or soon on DVD) and they are nearly useless. See my comments below:
Programming in Objective-C 2.0 LiveLessons Review:
I've developed windows software for about 15 years and had a brief interlude with Objective-C (2-3 months) back in 2008. I needed a refresher for the basics I still partially remembered and training for the more intricate/complicated features of the language which I never learned. I paid for access to these videos on Safari Books Online and spent several hours going through the videos.
I can say without question that I have no idea who the author was targeting with this material. The videos take an enormous amount of time to demonstrate the simplest features of the language while never covering a great deal of important information for any given topic. Important details about the language feature being taught are often omitted, delayed to some later point, or explained poorly.
You're forced to watch as the author types out every line of code he intends to use for his examples. All of it very similar to what you watched him type 1, 2, or 10 minutes earlier. All of the code should have been pre-typed so that the author could have covered material in greater detail and in a more student friendly organized fashion. Every video could (and should) be condensed to 1/10th the current length to cover the same material.
If you're new to programming this material is nowhere near sufficient to learn the language or how to use it. If you're an experienced programmer but new to Objective-C this course is nearly useless. You'll learn more spending 1 hour skimming his book (or another Objective-C text).
Wish I could say something good but they just plain suck. Disappointing. I spent hours online looking for video training on Objective-C and only found this course and some videos from Pragmatic Bookshelf (they suck also) and I bought both. Would not recommend either.
Hope this saves someone some money and alot of wasted time.
 Disappointed. August 31, 2009
CAW (Chander, AZ USA)
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
The book is okay. For a beginning programmer s/he will get some basic knowledge that is a good start, for someone who is familiar with C and/or C++ already - disappointment awaits. I was troubled in the preface when I was told that this book was written from the viewpoint of someone who hasn't used C before. That meant I spent a lot of time skimming information about basic C that had been inherited by Objective-C. But that is not what disappoints me.
Some of the definitions of basic C are incomplete or misleading, which makes me wonder about the Objective-C stuff. I am only on page 219 now, but still I wonder why its better for me to [[classname alloc] init] rather than [classname new]. The comment about being aware that allocation and initialization are two separate events doesn't really seem too cool to me. If I learn that, can I save myself some typing by just using new? Or is there something that doesn't happen. Btw, volatile is nots sort of the inverse of const. Please.
Apart from that I do feel like I haven't wasted my money, I now know enough to start experimenting and learning on my own, but I could have done that using Wiki and saved myself some ca$h.
To be fair, I am an experienced programmer (I write C/C++ compilers for a living and wanted to learn something 'new'). But I feel that even beginners need a little more in-depth explanation as to why the author prefers one approach over another, not just the how.
Showing reviews 11-15 of 73
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