Entries Tagged 'Beginning Programming' ↓

I’m a huge fan of Macs, no doubt about that. But… Cocoa programming leaves a lot to be desired at times. Continue reading →

For all those eager to learn Cocoa programming, yet stuck (blessed?) with 10.5 and Xcode 3, you know who you are… there is no way to run older versions usually. However, you can actually run Xcode 2.5 on Leopard! I know, I know, you want to use garbage collection, right? Well, it’s not the panacea you think it is for everything.

But for those who are still trying to learn using the Hillegass book with Xcode 3, this come from the proverbial horse’s mouth in a post to the Cocoa-Dev list:

From: Aaron Hillegass
Subject: Using “Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X” with Xcode 3.0

Friends,

I am getting some emails that go something like this:
“Hey! I just bought ‘Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, 2nd Edition’ and
none of your directions work on Xcode 3. I hate you, I hate you, I
hate you.”

I understand your frustration, and I am sincerely sorry if you feel
that you have been cheated. The tools have changed a lot, and the
third edition won’t be ready for several more months. Let me point
out, however, that the frameworks themselves have changed very little
and the ideas in the book are still useful.

To use the 2nd edition with Xcode 3, you need to know how the new
tools are used. In particular:
1) You don’t create classes in Interface Builder any more. Create the
class in Xcode, and type in the outlets and actions.
2) You don’t have to explicitly reparse the .h files — Interface
Builder will automatically reparse the file every time it is saved.
3) Instead of control-dragging for every pointer IB, you control-click
on an object to get its connection panel, and drag from there.

To get comfortable with these changes, I suggest that you do Apple’s
tutorial before starting on my book:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjCTutorial/

Skip my Palettes chapter! It is hopelessly out-of-date and unusable.

It will still require some patience to get through the book. If you
don’t have the patience, return the book to wherever you purchased it
– the new edition with Core Data, more Bindings, Web Services, View
Swapping, NSTask, Xcode 3, and Objective-C 2 will be available in the
Spring or early Summer.

Will I destroy my apology/helpful email with something crass and
commercial? I can not resist: I will be using a draft of the 3rd
edition of “Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X” at the Cocoa Bootcamp, Jan
14 - 18. If you want a seat, call 678-595-6773 to reserve one:
http://www.bignerdranch.com/classes/cocoa.shtml
We can send an instructor to your company, if that is more convenient/
cost-effective for you.

Also, Big Nerd Ranch will be running its first WebObjects course in
Germany, March 10 - 14:
http://www.bignerdranch.com/classes/webobjects.shtml
To register for that, call +49 (931) 9911-485.

Sincerely,
Aaron HIllegass
Big Nerd Ranch, Inc.

Here’s an interesting Ruby one-liner to ponder:

0.step(100, rand) { |x| puts x }

Imagine how useful this or some derivation of it could be in a game, or any situation where you want a timer, but not one that seems too regular and even…

Finally, a Ruby book on design patterns! Wow. Some languages never get a book like that.

At this rate, Ruby will be published into the mainstream. The number of Ruby books must surely outnumber Python books and soon outnumber Perl books.

Next up, RubyCocoa book?

Objective-C 2.0 is coming this month and some of the most important features are Properties, Garbage Collection, and Iterators. Continue reading →

You gotta love a guy like _why. Why? Because he loves art, kids, Ruby, and humanizing computing and he’s not all fired up about things like _why Microsoft sucks or whatnot. But even more importantly he recently said something about brevity and didn’t quite seem to realize how right he is or _why he is right about _what he’s right about!.
Continue reading →

So, what’s the next big thing gonna be? TAG SPAM. That’s right Continue reading →

Look, this isn’t a pride issue, but it is an issue of standardization! I don’t care if people use British or American spelling conventions in general. However, in programming, it is well established that everyone uses American English spellings for code. Not because it’s better or any other silly reason, but because it’s a de facto standard that simply prevents errors. Most of the world doesn’t use English every day, but in code they do. Even in Allegro’s Xcode template, which has a simple “hello world” I see centre. Any other time that would be great and fine and I wouldn’t care at all. But in code, it should be center. Especially in C!! Unless you have an alias for a method or function in code that provides for different languages, don’t do it. It’s just asking for error-ridden code by others. I’m not liking Allegro one bit so far.

SDL, I miss you already…

I’m interested in learning a bit about game programming. So I decided to pick up a book and work through it in either C or C++ as necessary to get the concepts down. I may have picked a lemon. I browsed the books today, and I think I chose wrong. I picked up Game Programming All In One. I never trust book titles, they’re unreliable because they’re usually determined by marketing jerks. Unfortunately publishers can’t be trusted either. I’ve only seen one publisher (pragmatic programmers) that consistently aims for quality, knowing that quality sells better than quantity. The others are all hit and miss, but mostly miss. Continue reading →

I started playing with C++ today. I tried it once in a class in school about 14 years ago. It was a summer intro course, but it was unofficially the class for those who already knew it and only needed credit. I didn’t know it was the Prof’s blowoff class!! Succinctly, I was turned off by C++ and it didn’t help that at the time, getting a hold of a decent compiler and a book that all followed the same standards was pretty difficult. Compilers were expensive then. Books had errors that were left up to you and/or your Prof to find! Few books at that time had web sites with errata listings. All together the barrier to entry learning programming was a lot higher then.

Things are better now. All technical books that are taken seriously DO have errata online. Compilers are easy to get. Computers are capable of spitting stuff out faster. Operating systems are actually stable and reliable now. Everything is downloadable now. Usually without ever needing to use ftp. Back then, the first thing you had to learn was how to use ftp to download anything. Not missing them good old days at all!

So I’ve been doing C++ with TextMate. It’s not well-indicated (unless you dig down a bit) but the C bundle includes C++. It even includes a menu item to compile your code. (unfortunately with no shortcut keys).

Works like a charm. As long as it’s a simple command line tool type of file, just go to Terminal and run it to test it. It would be nice if there was a little more C / C++ facility built in to Textmate. Oh well, it’s damn good, and can’t be everything.