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.