This is a post in my series “Road to Xcode.” I will be embarking on a journey to learn Objective C and Cocoa programming for Mac OS X. This will not be an instructive series but rather a look at what I have learned as well as the resources I am using to gain ground in the wide world of software development. You can follow my progress or check out other posts in this series by heading over to the Road to Xcode tag page.
Introduction
To kick start my Xcoding journey I am reading Become An Xcoder by Bert Altenburg, Alex Clarke and Philippe Mougin. This book is aimed at people with absolutely no coding experience and is free to download in PDF form.
01: A program is a series of instructions
The introduction and first chapter to Become an Xcoder is rather simple. I was introduced to basic programming terminology like data types, integers, operators, etc. Nothing I was too unfamiliar with since I read through basic introductions to PHP which uses the same terminology (I suppose all languages do). Working through the chapter was pretty straight forward except for the introduction to the ++ operator. I don’t know what it is, but I always seem to get hung up on this thing’s function. I understand what it does (a variable will be itself incremented by 1 i.e. x = x + 1). I was having a hard time with the outcome of the variable depending on the order the operator was used, such as x++ versus ++x. The examples written in the book were not extremely helpful, but then again I am only on the first chapter and I am hoping better explanation of the ++ operator will be later on.
As with any introduction I was not compiling any code or even looking at the IDE, but I am eager to continue.
Let it be known that I am now testing out the new Google microblogging service Jaiku. It is kind of like Plurk and Twitter combined in a more Twitter/Identi.ca interface. You can check me out here: http://skunkie.jaiku.com. I do have plenty of invites for those who would also like to test this service. Sound off in the comments.
Once upon a time I wrote a confession and then started on a journey to learn PHP. Admittedly I never got very far. Why? I honestly don’t know. I spent a good deal of every day for a few weeks reading books and going over examples with PolyVector. We set out a goal that even included the purchase of our iPhone. I continued reading a bit after that but never caught on. So continues my embarrassing nongeeky existence of programming impotence.
I know you have heard it before, but I would like to invite you on a new journey of mine, becoming an Xcoder. My goals will be to go through resources PolyVector and I find to bring me up from the lowest level of coding ignorance. Atomac will serve as a journal from time to time helping me discuss (or well at least air) what I have read (and hopefully retained) from day to day. Perhaps this will help some of you who aspire to begin programming new inspiration. Or I just want to think that Atomac serves some kind of purpose other than for PolyVector or (mostly) me to talk about ourselves.
So here’s where I am going to begin, I decided on starting with a free book in PDF put together by a few independent Mac developers on the very beginning introduction to Xcode, Mac Development, and Cocoa. The book is called Become An Xcoder. If anyone would like to toss more resources my way I am more than happy to give them a look over. Tomorrow (or close to it) should bring the first bout of entries regarding my progress.