XCode book recommendations for an experienced programmer

May 1, 2007 2:39 PM

I'm an experienced programmer that wants to start using XCode create some GUI applications. I am looking for a good book (or books) to get me started. Look for

I've been a programmer for over 10 years, for the last 7 I have been using MySQL, Oracle and Perl, before that lots of java and C, some C++. Most of my experience is doing the backend for scientific web based applications. I did a bit of GUI work in Java back when swing was still beta and everything was done by hand but it has been a while and I hear that the tools are much better now.

I don't need a book for a programming neophyte, just someone who has been stuck in the backend for the last 7 years (and never used an IDE for that type of development). Can anyone recommend a book or books for someone with my background? Does anyone have an opinion on James Bucanek's "Beginning XCode"?

posted by cftarnas to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: You might find this a bit deeper, and you can't go wrong with Hillegass' excellent Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, which is notably more XCode-focused in its second edition.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:05 PM on May 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

You could also do worse than using Apple's tutorials. I ran through them, and it got me a little used to both XCode and also Objective C.
posted by cschneid at 3:30 PM on May 1, 2007

Seconding the Hillegass text if you're programming in Objective C. I think it's pretty much the first book any Cocoa programmer I've met recommends.
posted by edd at 3:51 PM on May 1, 2007

Thirding Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. I got through it, but dropped OS X GUI programming because I found Obj C icky. If you find you like it though, the actual environment, and Cocoa itself, is really pretty good. Luckily there are options for other languages (Java and Python being the two most solid I've found so far).
posted by wackybrit at 5:03 PM on May 1, 2007