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Learn C on the Mac (Learn Series)

Posted by Kathy Geissel on Friday 30 April 2010
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Great Price "Learn C on the Mac (Learn Series)" for $24.86 Today



When it comes to technical books, Apress makes some of my favorite and most useful books. Being in IT, and being a proud Mac owner and Snow Leopard user for about a year now, I figured I should start learning more about developing for Mac's, so I purchased Learn C on the Mac. When purchasing this book, we must keep in mind that just learning C will not allow us to create the coolest looking applications and software for OS X. C is what C++, the more popular Java, and what Objective-C are based on. The goal of this book is teach us the basic fundamentals that prepare us for C++, Objective-C or Java, and to allow us to feel comfortable with Xcode (Xcode is where we code, it's like Visual Studio or Eclipse for the Mac).

For the beginner, this book is perfect, as the author clearly states that to his surprise, he's found children and soccer moms are interested in learning how to code - so it should be really easy to follow. For those that already know VB and C#, the book will be even easier to follow along, and you'll learn the basics of developing for the Mac or iPhone. Overall, this book is an intro to programing (regardless of which language or platform you plan to use) and a guide to using Xcode for programing.

Anything exercises the book has us do, are all ran and debugged in Xcode. Once you finish this book, you'll be able to understand Learn Objective-C on the Mac, also by Apress. Objective-C, based on C (this book), is what Mac's actually run on, and allows for scrolling, menu's, etc... The last step, after understanding Objective C, is to decide what you want to do. Do you want to develop for the Mac or the iPhone? If you choose Mac, Learn Cocoa on the Mac by Apress would be the right book, if you choose to learn mobile Cocoa instead, for the iPhone, you would want Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK by Apress too. Cocoa would be what we really need to learn to be able and create iPhone applications and software as we know it today.

Anyways, I don't think it'll matter if your a beginner, or already a developer (non C or Java), you will likely learn from this book. Sure, Java developers might be able to review too, and learn how to use Xcode, but if your already developing in C, Java you might be ready to move on to Objective-C. Have fun learning, and remember, this is not a PC only world anymore!!


Learn C on the Mac (Learn Series) Features

  • ISBN13: 9781430218098
  • Condition: NEW
  • Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.



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Price : $39.99
Offer Price : $24.86



Learn C on the Mac (Learn Series) Overviews

Considered a classic by an entire generation of Mac programmers, this popular guide has been completely updated for Mac OS X. Don’t know anything about programming? No problem! Acclaimed author Dave Mark starts out with the basics and takes you through a complete course in programming C using Apple’s free Xcode tools. This book is perfect for beginners learning to program. It includes all–new Mac OS X examples!

  • Provides best practices for programming newbies
  • Written by the expert on C–programming for the Mac
  • Presents all the basics with a pragmatic, Mac OS X-flavored approach

What you’ll learn

  • Master C programming, the gateway to programming your Mac or iPhone.
  • Write applications for the Mac OS X interface, the cleanest user interface around.
  • Understand variables and how to design your own data structures.
  • Work with the file system.
  • Connect to data sources and the Internet.

Who is this book for

For anyone wanting to learn to program in Mac OS X, including developers new to the Mac, developers new to C, or students entirely new to programming. For anyone who wants to learn how to program their iPhone, this is also the core language primer.

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Customer Review


Elementary, brief and little to do with Mac OS - John Harpur - Trim, Meath, IRELAND
Recently I downloaded Kindle for the Mac, and out of interest I chose the Kindle version of Learn C on the Mac to experience Kindle in action. The Kindle version did not display any book page numbers which was immensely frustrating since it was hard to gauge where I was in the book without referring back to the table of contents. Not a satisfying user experience.

The book itself is a little higher in quality than complete drek but by a narrow call. Most of the code is built around creating a DVD library - using the terminal for all input and output - a very historical if not dated approach more suited to a 386 PC from the 80s. It is a very simple project, too simple in my opinion for what the Mac has to offer. Code slices are available from the book's website. A long list of bugs are reported by readers on the website along with author responses. Some of the bugs are just down to bad proof reading, but others are more serious. e.g. operator confusion. Towards the end of the book, a short piece on binary trees and searching is preceded by an even shorter piece on recursion (using factorial as exemplar). The author professes himself a fan of Knuth's work so surely something more substantial could have been presented.

In summary the book takes one straightforward terminal focused I/O application and uses it deliver brief illustrations of C constructs and mechanisms. Apart from a couple of screen-shots from XCode at the beginning, a reader could be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled into a time warp of C presentation from 20 or more years ago. Objective-C and Cocoa get mentions that are so brief as to be useless. The 'Mac' component in the book in my opinion is irrelevant. There are better C texts, more substantial and more challenging.


Good book to get started - James Love Lll - Mamaroneck, NY United States
So far this book has been great at introducing some of the concepts necessary for programming in C. I have had some programming experience in he past, so it is not all foreign to me. The programming examples are easy to follow and the book is well organized. This is my first use of a book from Apress, and I will likely purchase follow up books like programming in objective-c.



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