[TubaMuffins]

i was wondering if apple stores are maybe MUGs offered classes on how to write programs for Macs. I am interested in enrolling for a course at my college that teaches introductory programming but i assume it is mostly windows stuff (like .exe). I am more intersted in Cocoa and other Mac oriented languages. the course i am interested in teaches C++, i dont know much of anything about programming but i assume not much C++ is used on Macs anymore. apologies for my programming incompetence, any help will be appreciated, and any negetavie criticism will be understood
thanks

[Catfish_Man]

C++ is still used pretty heavily on Macs (although I personally can't stand the language). Basically I would start by learning to program, then you can learn to program for specific things. If you learn anywhere close to the rate I did it'll be a while before you need to touch anything that doesn't run on pretty much anything.

I use Objective-C, which is a somewhat nicer language and lets me use Cocoa (which is very nice indeed). See home.comcast.net/~catfish_man for my only released program so far. I started out with a little LOGO and BASIC as a kid, took a few C++ classes, then self taught myself very basic C++ with a bit of help from a pro. When I ran into pointers I bailed and went for Java (much nicer). After a while my brother got into Cocoa, so I looked at it, picked up a bit of Objective-C in about a week, and have spent most of the time since then working on one project or another in it (mostly Orbital). There are still huge sections of Cocoa that I haven't touched, or don't really understand well (right now NSArchiver is screwing me up), so I've got a lot to learn.

[Arclite]

I likewise started with Basic and various "wizard" apps as a child, taught myself some basic C, bailed at pointers, then got into Objective-C with the help of a pro . My advice: Find a pro at some language who's willing to help you. (Note: I'm not a pro. I still have the "pro" mentioned earlier at my back for some of the harder stuff, or confusing bugs.)

[off/lang]

I would recommend Java. It tends to promote good programming practices and lets you code pretty much anything you want (Command line, network apps, GUI, etc).

Here is a good tutorial on Java.