Cocoa programming for Mac OS X

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1. jstschAug 2026
   This! I remember reading 'Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X' by Aaron Hillegass and being fascinated by it. Coming from Java, C, doing some DSP code, web work, Objective C and Cocoa at first seemed just utterly alien and a bit wrong.

   Message passing, these loosely coupled 'delegates', a mixture of hardcore C, needing to do memory management but also just passing objects around in the runtime... messy, weird... but in the end the right solution to make flexible but performant software. I learned a lot from it. I should dive into the history of NeXT one day.

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2. bluedinoFeb 2023
   I would suggest Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, even though it's based on Objective-C and the book is old. That means it's based upon older versions of Xcode and Mac OS (like ~10 years old). Conceptually it's a good book, but because of it's age the code examples, etc are outdated. The publisher does have forums which can be helpful:

   https://forums.bignerdranch.com/c/cocoa-programming-for-os-x...

   They also have a Swift book, but I haven't personally read it. They also have an Advanced Mac OS X book, but it's also old and isn't on their website anymore.

   https://bignerdranch.com/books/

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3. chrisBobOct 2014
   I started mostly with "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X". I wanted to learn objective-C, but I hadn't convinced myself that an iPad was worth the investment yet. From there I worked on my first iOS game with a combination of Stack Overflow and Apple references.

   My first big project was "Ocean Commotion"[1] and the motivation was that I didn't see many good multi touch games in the app store. It still disappoints me how most iOS games would be better suited to play with a mouse or keyboard when there is this amazing interface available. Did you know an iPad can handle 11 touch points at once, and an iPhone can handle 5?

   My game started out as two orange rectangles that I could drag around on a blue background. Once you realize that views all get their own inputs then having 5 objects all respond to touch events at the same time is pretty straightforward.

   For your first app I recommend starting with something simple. One recent game I made was "Jack Slap"[2]. It is a simple reaction time game, and would make a decent introduction into working with Xcode. Don't worry about the details up front. Just think of a concept or single feature you like and start doodling in code to get a feel for things.

   My biggest challenge is probably my artistic ability. You can tell that I got an artist involved for Ocean Commotion, but not for anything else. Making an app look good is an important part of the process. Fortunately there are lots of artists out there who can't code to help you out!

   [1] http://oceancmotion.com

   [2]https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jack-slap/id846622220?mt=8 (iTunes link)

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4. tylerhallJul 2014
   Aaron Hillegass's "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" is how I got started. Likely, his new books only focus on iOS development. But this book pre-dates the iPhone. I learned Mac dev from it in 2005. Highly recommended for the basics.
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5. jsmartonlyDec 2011
   Reading document from Apple is the best way to start.

   For books, I found the following are very helpful:

   1) Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (by Aaron Hillegass) 2) Cocoa Design Patterns (by Erik M. Buck and Donald A. Yacktman)

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6. brianwillisDec 2010
   I started out developing for the Mac with "The Objective-C Programming Language" but found it clumsy and kind of dense. In my opinion "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Aaron Hillegass (http://www.amazon.com/Cocoa-Programming-Mac-OS-3rd/dp/032150...) is much better in the way it introduces concepts, and flows from chapter to chapter. Well worth the investment if you're serious about developing for the Mac.
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