I am an experienced programmer with languages such as Java, C and C++, but I have little Mac programming experience. I would love to dive into the Mac with cocoa development, but many of the pages on Apple's site are a bit prohibitive to the novice Mac programmer. Can any of you experienced (relatively speaking of course) cocoa developers post some of the sites online you know of to find information on cocoa programming?

Thank you.

Stoner

[Paul Crawford]

Hi Stoner,

I'm afraid I don't really qualify as a Cocoa API expert, but I just wanted to mention some online resources that could be useful to you if you haven't already seen them.

For general platform-migration developer resources (primarily Mac <-> Windows), please see the related threads in this Forum, such as the Which Platform? thread. In particular, assuming that your background is in Windows (you didn't say), check out one of the resources mentioned in that thread, viz., Apple's own An Introduction to Macintosh Programming for Windows Developers online "porting" guide. However, note that this guide is somewhat outdated with respect to Mac OS X. It discusses Mac OS "Classic" which has certain limitations (e.g., no memory protection, no preemptive multitasking, etc.) that do not exist in Mac OS X. Nevertheless, much of the information (event loop, window management, etc.) is still generally applicable to Mac OS X. [If you are a Windows developer, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how similar Mac OS is to Windows! Or, is that the other way around? ;-)] Actually, it might be easier for you to start off with the Carbon API rather than the Cocoa API (the two are more-or-less "peers" in Mac OS X) since, unlike Cocoa, Carbon is a direct evolution of the older Classic API and there's a vast amount of resources available for Classic.

In any event, for specific information about the Cocoa API and the Objective-C language, the following resources might be helpful (note that the latest version of Cocoa's Project Builder IDE supposedly supports C and C++, but I believe that many of Apple's own Cocoa code-samples are still in Objective-C):-

• The MacTech magazine's list of Cocoa articles (you'll need to scroll down until you see 'Cocoa' in the left column), and its companion list of Objective-C articles (ditto for scrolling).
• The various other websites listed at the Netscape Open Directory Project's Objective-C Directory.

Since Cocoa uses C, C++, Objective-C and Java, and you're already familiar with most of these languages, you might also want to just take a look at the official Cocoa code-samples (rather than ploughing through lots of Cocoa API documentation). The samples can be found at Apple's Project Builder (Cocoa) Sample Code web page. [To build these samples, you'll need Apple's Project Builder IDE. If you don't already have a copy, it can be downlaoded for free from the ADC Member Site but you'll need to first sign up for at least an ADC "Online" Membership (also for free) as described in the ADC Membership Programs - Information web page. (And, of course, you'll need a copy of Mac OS X PB itself.)]

Update 2001/03/11: As noted on MacNN's main page yesterday (Saturday, 2001/03/10), there are some other Mac OS X Carbon & Cocoa tutorial docs and samples listed on Apple's Introduction to Mac OS Programming page, some of which have been updated quite recently.

Update 2001/03/24: As noted in the OS X New & Noteworthy section of a recent MacFixIt Mac OS X Late-Breakers page (Wednesday, 2001/03/21), there's a new Cocoa Dev Central website that's apparently dedicated to Cocoa development.

[Also, if you haven't already done so, you could try asking for further leads over in the OS X - Developer Forum.]

Regards, and good luck,

--Paul

[This message has been edited by Paul Crawford (edited 03-24-2001).]