One of the things I’ve always wanted to do on a Mac that I’ve not yet had the opportunity, time or guidance to do is learn how to develop applications for it. I’ve known for a long time that the software development toolkit is freely available and offers a mature development environment in which some of the most well known applications have been built.
We’ve all heard about the stories of iPhone application developers earning big bucks, so given that incentive I decided to find out more. If you’ve never programmed for the Mac before, or you’re a novice programmer, APRESS publishes a book by Dave Mark called Learn C on the Mac. The book guides you through the very basic fundamentals of programming in C and offers you that first taste for Mac development.
Learn C on the Mac starts with the development tools and where you can get them from. It then moves on to the basic programming concepts that you’ll find familiar in other languages and will familiarise you with the Xcode development environment and the C syntax. It doesn’t just stop there though, it progresses you through to the more advanced programming concepts involving data structures, variable types, typecasting and working with files.
If you ever get stuck, the APRESS website contains the source code for each of the samples that are free to download.
Learn C on the Mac is an excellent introduction to getting started in software development on the Mac. It works for both experienced developers coming from other language backgrounds or if you’re pretty much new to programming altogether. The complimentary source code and line-by-line breakdown of what the code does, delivers tutorials that are easy to follow and understand.
Don’t expect to be able to be able to just blast through the book and be an expert on Mac development. It won’t happen overnight, simply because the 300+ pages will require some patience to work through. However, if you’re looking for a comprehensive and detailed understanding of C programming on the Mac, then you won’t find a better example than Learn C on the Mac.
Buy this from Amazon today:
I think I heard the guys on MacBreak Weekly talking about this book or one similar to it. I guess it comes highly recommended then!
@henryishere: That’s where I learned about these range of books for the first time too. In the photograph you’ll see a couple more of the “Learn” series of books which I’ll be featuring on here over the coming weeks – need to have a dig through them first! So far, the Learning C on the Mac book has been a really good introduction to software development on the Mac using Xcode. The plan is to make millions on the iTunes AppStore!
Just placed my order on Amazon. I hope it’s as good as you make it out to be!