[Jeebs]

Since I already program in Pascal, REALbasic, AppleScript, and in C with CodeWarrior, I thought I'd like to learn Xcode before the Intel Macs arrive, so I bought the Xcode 2 book by Michael and Dennis Cohen. I was at disappointed that about a third of the book seems to be fluff in the form of folksy silliness thrown in in the name of being user-friendly. It makes it a little more fun to read, but harder to learn what the authors are trying to teach. I was also disappointed that I was unable to get the first project, a simple Hello World project, to run. When I click the button, "Hello World" does not appear, so I double-checked and re-did my work several times to no avail.

Has anyone else had better luck actually learning Xcode with this book?

[shucks]

Haven't read the book but from my experience and observation, it is sometimes really hard for the author themselves to make sure the code in the book works 100%. First of all, there is always the changes in the Dev environment and secondly sometimes things they sent through to the publishers get published in a "slightly" different way and this may caused things not to work (maybe a missing line, capitalised stuffs when they are not supposed to). Best bet is to look at the publisher's site for any errata or even just mail the dudes themselves. Just my two cents worth

Oh i assumed that the code was typed from the book

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1.67 GHz 17" Albook
Beta test my pet marketplace http://www.takethisdeveloper.com

[Jeebs]

Well, I tried the "Hello World" project again, and this time it worked. I suspect I previously missed or misunderstood a step. I'm definitely going to read the rest of the book and go through all of the remaining exercises. Eventually, I'm sure that "a ha" moment will come.

Two things I must compliment the authors on are the liberal use of screen captures to illustrate what's happening, and the abundance of notes and sidebars to explain why things work the way they do, and to give a big-picture understanding of the Xcode environment. All things considered, I'm glad I bought this book and would definitely recommend it to others.

[Angus_D]

Whenever people bring up Cocoa/Xcode books, I feel inclined to mention the big friendly list with votes and stuff at http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?CocoaBooks

[driven]

The basic layout of that book (table of contents, etc.) didn't impress me.

I've just ordered a book from Wrox on Cocoa programming. I'll post my impressions when it comes in and I get a chance to digest it. I almost bought it at B&N, but it was like $12 cheaper on Amazon with free shipping. I'm cheap ... so I wait.

[Detrius]

Originally Posted by Jeebs

Since I already program in Pascal, REALbasic, AppleScript, and in C with CodeWarrior, I thought I'd like to learn Xcode before the Intel Macs arrive, so I bought the Xcode 2 book by Michael and Dennis Cohen. I was at disappointed that about a third of the book seems to be fluff in the form of folksy silliness thrown in in the name of being user-friendly. It makes it a little more fun to read, but harder to learn what the authors are trying to teach. I was also disappointed that I was unable to get the first project, a simple Hello World project, to run. When I click the button, "Hello World" does not appear, so I double-checked and re-did my work several times to no avail.

Has anyone else had better luck actually learning Xcode with this book?

Was that the book that said "Mac OS X version 1.4" on the front? If so, that should have been your sign.

[Jeebs]

No, the front just says Xcode 2. The instructions did work, I just got off to a poor start. I found the zany style fun to read, but not as concise as a reference as, say, Kernighan & Ritchie's "The C Programming Language."

[outsourced]

Right. I looked through that XCode book. (it's the one published by Wiley, right?) Too fluffy. The authors think they are comedians -- it's not working, guys.

You can't even navigate the Table of Contents without having to decipher some stupid description they've given a topic. After that, I didn't even want to look at the index.

Well, just my 2-cents.