Learn Objective-C on the Mac (Learn Series)

After first reading a Wiley Publishing book on this topic, and getting lost in all the errors and the rapidity of the code (tell me if you got totally lost on Chapter 8 like I did?), my next book on the subject was this. WOW! While this book won't get you up and coding full-blown applications in a day, I truly believe that this should be every future Mac OS X developer's FIRST book on Objective-C. Only then should one move on to meatier things. While the other books get you building pretty apps, and you follow along as best you can, not fully understanding what every line of code means, and *maybe* you could rewrite the example code by memory a day after, this book gives you the confidence to tackle big projects, by building a solid Foundation(.h) of the basics, explaining the basics, and especially drawing attention to the differences between C and Objective-C while you're going along.

After completing the book once, and returning to the Wiley Publishing book, I was able to fully understand the examples in that book, and was able to even rewrite the examples to make more sense to me. I even had a good idea on how to formulate my Classes ahead-of-time, from looking at the purpose of the examples.

If you want to code the next lame Mac OS X or iOS program people won't download even though it's free, go ahead, choose a different book. If you want to make Cocoa/Objective-C your career, and give you the confidence to aim high, start with this book. I'm glad I did.