Question

learning objective-c - where to start?

Asked by: geordie007

hi experts

quite a long question, hence the 500 points. also an "advice" question, rather than a right or wrong, so points will go to whoever can help me out.

i'd really like your advice on learning Objective-C. i'm a Windows user, an internet application developer, expert in XHTML, CSS, JavaScript (a JavaScript "Master" on this site), thorough knowledge of PHP and MySQL, and have dabbled with Cold Fusion and ASP.

despite never owning a Mac, i love Apple products (i've had four iPods), and bought an iPhone the second it was available in the UK. i watched with great interest - to say the least - the Apple iPhone SDK press conference a couple of weeks ago, and i'd really like to move towards developing applications for the iPhone - the problem is, i have no experience of Objective-C or ANSI C for that matter.

so, what i'd like to know is this...

- to learn Objective-C, do i first need to pick up at least the fundamentals of ANSI C? or can i just jump straight into Objective-C, perhaps as a result of my previous "programming" experience (PHP, JavaScript)?
- i understand that the iPhone SDK will only run on Mac OS, but is there some way of developing Objective-C on a Windows machine while i'm learning (i want to see whether i actually *can* write Objective-C before i buy a Mac)?
- if you believe that i really should play with ANSI C first, how do i go about setting up an environment on a Windows machine, if this is at all possible?
- any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks for listening

geordie007

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2008-03-20 at 05:31:06ID23256608
Topics

Objective-C Programming Language

,

Apple Programming

,

C Programming Language

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
4

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. iPod on x64
    iTunes crashes before it loads. It seems that Apple doesn't support x64. I didn't know this and recently got an IPod. Does anyone know a workaround? I don't want to install a 32-bit OS just so I can use my IPod, that's rediculous. WTF APPLE? You IDIOTS! Thanks =(
  2. iPhone and iPOD Touch Differences
    I'm looking at doing an application for the iPhone for a software company. They are offering me an iPOD Touch to use as a test unit, even though the iPhone is the target platform. Are there known differences which could hinder my development if I am only testing on a live uni...
  3. Ipod Photo Cache
    I recently restored my iphone and erased the photos on the iphone. I am using a pc and noticed there is a folder there called 'Ipod Photo Cache'. How do I open up these pictures?

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: davidgeldreichPosted on 2008-03-20 at 05:48:32ID: 21170689

Hello,

you could just jump into Objective without knowledge of C. Programming experience is a plus.

The GNU compiler is able to generate Objective-C code.
For example, you could use the windows port DJGPP : http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/

With Leopard able has move Objective C to version 2.0 :
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC

But Objective C without the library (frameworks) available on Apple platform is the same as using Java without the Java API...

I found this on google to complete my answer :
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/22037

Best regards

Last solution is to install OS X on your windows machine (search google for howtos)

 

by: fridomPosted on 2008-03-20 at 07:50:44ID: 21172083

Objective-C is really a superset of C so knowing C really. But for learning OO is C not a very good tool Objective-C is but you have to do OO programming right from the start and that's not  that natural. E.g output can be simple done by printf functions, but then there might be the problems with manual memory allocation which now has changed in Leopard on Apples where GC is "build-in" but it's not elsewhere.

A good starting point to get into Objective-C is either an Objective-C tutorial
http://www.infobliss.at/objc/obc001_index.htm

or
http://objc.toodarkpark.net/

good for learning Objective-c is also learning Smalltalk. If you know Smalltalk you can start writing Objective-C code very soon. Of course you have to declare variables in Objective-C this can reach from very type specific (NSString eg) to totally unspecific id someThing;

apple also has a nice introduction to Objective C on their pages at:


http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/Introduction/chapter_1_section_1.html

and i think starting from somwhere on Wikipedia might be worth it also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C

I really appreciate the wonderful C extension, which Objective-C is, but unfortunatly  the biggest competitor on the Market (well if one can talk from Market with FOSS) GNUstep is way to flaky, the tools are bad and especially debugging is extremly painful. Objective-C deserves better so best is to get some Mac OS X (IMH) because Objective C is really supported and used there

Regards
Friedrich

 

by: Alex CuryloPosted on 2008-05-02 at 00:19:10ID: 21485019

You don't necessarily need to learn ANSI C. There is a very good book called "Programming in Objective-C" that introduces without assuming prior knowledge of C, which all other tutorials you'll find will. You probably won't find it on the shelves at your local bookstore since it's five years old now, so if it's not at your neighborhood library you can conveniently order it from my Amazon affiliate store:

http://astore.amazon.com/alexcurylo-20/detail/0672325861/002-6088628-8359202

I recommend that you read that book some way or other, and then you'll have a handle on whether you dig this Objective-C thing at all. If you do, then buy a Mac. It is barely possible to scratch out ObjC programs under Windows with gcc-based toolchains ... but you really, seriously, don't want to bother with that. If you're interested in the iPhone, then get the iPhone SDK, don't waste time.

 

by: AttabuiPosted on 2008-05-03 at 13:12:16ID: 21493570

I'll second Alex's vote for Programming in Objective-C.  Note, though, that Kochan's main website is having trouble, and he has posted a .Mac homepage at http://web.mac.com/steve_kochan/My_Home/Objective-C.html with errata, example code, and answers to the exercises in the book.

~Mikey

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...