[SYN]

OK, I'm on holidays since today, I've got a month and a half, and I want to take up Programming. I have little programming background (Basic, Maple...), but do have quite a good level in Maths, if it's any help. I want to learn programming in Cocoa, I really don't care about the rest. Where do I start? I've got the dev tools cd, do I need to dl more, where can I find appropriate documentation (keep in mind I am a newbie) etc.? All help would be appreciated.

I'm doing this with a friend of mine, both of us have the same background, he wants to pick up c++ for BeOS programming. Our goal is to be able to turn out, by the end of summer, a simple multiplatform and opensource instant message app.

I'd appreciate any guidance, mentor, or just links.

Cheers.

[Angus_D]

This has been discussed time and time again. Please look in the archives... Probably at the Mac OS X Developer Newbie thread, among others. http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ulti...4&t=000609

There is a Learning Cocoa book out now, it's the only one so far, and it does assume you have come experience with C and programming in general. Getting out a proper thing in 1.5 months is a tall order, but there are mailing lists and sites to help you (cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com, www.cocoadev.com come to mind).

[sadie]

That's not a long time to learn any language. For both you and your friend, the place to start is the same: C. Make sure you have a good solid grounding in plain C before you complicate matters with either C++ or Objective-C.

C++ and Objective-C aren't really compatible at any higher level and plain C, so it's unlikely that you could produce a single, cross-platform app in the two of them without making extra work for yourself (which you don't have time for).

How about learning C++ and Carbon? It may not be as good as Cocoa, but it'll make it a lot easier for you to learn with your friend. No more sitting around for two days trying to figure out an obvious mistake that anybody could have seen - that happens a lot when you're learning a language.

So: Go get yourself a good C book today, and order either Learning Cocoa or Carbon from O'Reilly for later. And good luck!

[ryochiji]

I second Sadie's recommendation: learn C first. Especially if you eventually want to code in Objective-C (Cocoa) or C++, you will benefit greatly if you learn C first. In fact, if you have a month and a half, you could spend a month learning C, then half a month learning Objective-C or C++. Since the later two languages are very similar to C, it'll take far less time to learn, once you know C. Not to mention, most other popular languages (e.g. Java, PHP) will come easily as well (I "learned" PHP in a week).

[kescom]

It might be an idea for you to try Java instead. Alot of things are similar to Cocoa, and some are not. If neither of you have OOP experience, it'd be good to do some reading on that first...there are lots of good places on the web, so I won't bother inserting one.
I actually learned Java by writing a simple instant messaging server and client. Java really does take the work out of doing alot of things, especially networking. Cocoa may also, but I've heard of people having problems working with NSSocket; I haven't gotten a chance yet.

If you use Java, make sure to get NetBeans (www.netbeans.org). It's a really wonderful IDE that takes all the work out of designing GUIs, and has excellent source editing and debugging tools as well. If you do decide to go the Objective-C route, you should have everything you need. Take a peek at the Objective-C language reference docs on Apple's Developer site (just ferret around a bit), and start to play. There's a decent tutorial app there somewhere too; it helped me get off the ground.

For your friend, there are good Be development tutorials everywhere. Just do a google search.

Good luck to you and your friend!

Benjamin Stiglitz
ben at kescom.net (email me for questions)