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MARINEOSX · Jan 5, 2006, 08:59 PM

I am have become very serious about learning how to make applications for OS X, and I am going to buy a few new books. I hope that someone could tell me what they think. I have already purchased 2 books so that I can learn some basic functionality of OS X and Unix for OS X. I am still learning a lot about both but am moving right along. The books that I have are: Hacking Mac OS X Tiger; by Scott Knaster, I purchased this to give be an insight into some of the cool shortcuts and customization in OS X so that I can hopefully increase pruductivity when the time comes. I also have: Learning Unix for Mac OS X Tiger; by Dave Taylor, I got this so that I can utilize Unix, and understand it for when I get more in depth into programming. I plan on getting the second edition to this to further my knowledge, and I also would like to note that I am going to be going to school when I come home from Iraq. I have also downloaded the Advanced Bash-Scriptting. I am wantting to order three books to start into while I am deployed after the first 2.

1. Beggining Mac OS X Programming; by Michael Trent

2. The Mac Xcode 2 Book; by Michael E. Cohen

3. Cocoa (R) Programming for Mac (R) OS X (Second Ed.); by Aaron Hillegass

I am going to read and study these books in this order, unless some one has a better suggestion? Which is my question Should I get these books to start or no? I am fairly compitant when it comes to these things as I work with Unix based systems for the Marine corps. I have been playing with it for some time and hope to make a career out of it. Thank you in advance for any help. (Sorry for the spelling dinner is on the table AND THE FAMILY IS WAITING

Juggle5 · Jan 7, 2006, 08:47 PM

I haven't read most of the books you listed, but I can vouch for the Hillegass; it's a great book and lets you start writing applications quickly. It is designed for you to be writing programs as you are reading along, so it's best if you have a mac available to work on while you are reading it.

If you have previous experience with Linux or some Unix variant, then you might forgo some of the shell scripting books, as Mac OS X is fairly similar. More background knowledge never hurts, but depending on the types of programs you wish to write, you probably won't need an extensive knowledge of Unix. (I consider myself fairly competent in unix, but I don't need that much when I'm writing a Cocoa application with XCode. When I'm writing command-line programs with vim, writing my own makefiles, etc., then the unix knowledge is more useful.)

techtrucker · Jan 8, 2006, 09:04 AM

Just another vote for the Hillegass book, that's the one that really got me started.

szymczyk · Jan 8, 2006, 05:23 PM

If you're looking for a book on the Xcode Tools, I would ask you to take a look at my book, Xcode Tools Sensei. It would be a good complement to the Hillegass book or one of the other Cocoa books. You can download a detailed table of contents and book samples at the following URL:

http://www.meandmark.com/xcodebook.html

MARINEOSX · Jan 8, 2006, 11:25 PM

Thanks for all the info. I do need to know the shel scripting because I am wanting to write a program for a rsh/tmp> command line that a major switch uses. I am hopeing to make a trainer and possibly more for it as this is not available yet. Currently the training that I have just finished has to spend 300,000 just on a small compliment of switches to be able to train just 3 of us. If they had a trainer that would save them a lot of money and help them train more people as well.