Everyone who worked with computers back in the 8 bit days thinks of himself as a programmer. I’m no different. I remember the days …

 10 Print “Hello World”
 20 Goto 10

I even tried my hand at assembly code at which, in hindsight, I was terrible.

So fast forwarding 20 (or 30) years I still like the idea of pushing pixels around the screen and want to pick it up again. I’m not looking for a new career. I just think as a hobbyist (and Mac nerd), it would be fun to understand Xcode more. I’ve bought a few books for this purpose over the years. The problem is, I never seem to finish them. I am probably not the only one who buys a programming book with the greatest intentions and never makes it to the end. The reason for this is that the landscape of programming has changed so much since I was “in the game” that I can’t keep up with a book that takes anything for granted. I need the basics. That is what led me to read Objective-C for Absolute Beginners by Gary Bennett, Mitch Fisher, and Brad Lees.

If you are looking to get started with Xcode, this is the book. The point of an objective based programming language is working with, well … objects. The trouble is, applying (and learning) the basic concepts of Objective-C objects requires a lot more knowledge of Objective-C than just the basics. As a result, a lot of new programmers get stuck at the gate. The authors have a solution. They use the open source Alice Project to teach basic objective programming concepts and then move back to Xcode to use those principals with Objective-C.

The title gets it right. This book is for absolute beginners. You can pick it up without a lick of programming knowledge and (with a little patience) work your way through the book. If you are looking to get a working knowledge of Objective-C, this one is for you.

Discount Code

The publisher has a 25% discount for MacSparky readers. If you are interested buy it here and enter the discount code “MACSPARKYDFT”.