Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

by Aaron Hillegass, Mikey Ward

Want to write iOS apps or desktop Mac applications? This introduction to programming and the Objective-C language is your first step on the journey from someone who uses apps to someone who writes them.

Based on Big Nerd Ranch's popular Objective-C Bootcamp, Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide covers C, Objective-C, and the common programming idioms that enable developers to make the most of Apple technologies. Compatible with Xcode 5, iOS 7, and OS X Mavericks (10.9), this guide features short chapters and an engaging style to keep you motivated and moving forward. At the same time, it encourages you to think critically as a programmer.

Here are some of the topics covered:

Using Xcode, Apple’s documentation, and other tools Programming basics: variables, loops, functions, etc. Objects, classes, methods, and messages Pointers, addresses, and memory management with ARC Properties and Key-Value Coding (KVC ) Class extensions Categories Classes from the Foundation framework Blocks Delegation, target-action, and notification design patterns Key-Value Observing (KVO) Runtime basics

Genres: Programming, Nonfiction, Reference, Computer Science, Computers, Technology, Software

371 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 17, 2011

About the author

Aaron Hillegass was working at NeXT when it was purchased by Apple. He founded Big Nerd Ranch in 2001. He is working on a PhD in Machine Learning at Georgia Tech.

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for learning Objective-C. Objective-C is a pretty screwy programming language that feels very different from other C-derived languages like PHP and Java. It had a massive library of built-in objects and it changes constantly. There is an online forum for this book and others written by Big Nerd Ranch if you need help on the challenges at the end of the chapter.

The only problem I personally had with this book is that things are explained very quickly. I am a person who needs to hear something unfamiliar about three or four times before it sinks in. The book will say, "This is this. It does this. Moving on..." and I will be like, "Wait! How does it do this? How do I use it? Why am I using it?" So I tend to read multiple books on a programming language while I am learning it because I like to hear things multiple times for me to get it. That said, this is a great book for Objective-C!

[Bjoern Rochel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good introduction to Objective-C. I like the challenges presented at the end of most chapters. Really helped me a lot to get basic understanding of ObjC as a language. The next steps for me will be to learn more about unit testing and iOS/Cocoa.

[Mark Boszko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been working through this book during a lunchtime book group at my office, and while I do have some previous Objective-C programming experience, I wanted a refresher before I dove back into creating a new iPhone app later this year. They way the book is plotted is top-notch — introducing concepts early on that will pay off later. I've always felt that I understand something best when I can look at it from the ground up (instead of learning at the nice shiny surface, and later having to figure out how to dig down), and Mikey Ward seems to have the same philosophy. Knowing it from the bottom-up is also essential in understanding why something might be broken in your code, and how to debug it. May not be the best book for those who have never programmed at all (there are a few concepts that get glossed over), but excellent for learning the language. Highly recommended.

PS: Some may say now that Swift is available that Objective-C is no longer relevant, but there's 30 years of code that form Cocoa and other frameworks in Mac OS X and iOS, and they're not going away anytime soon. If you're doing any serious work on Apple platforms in probably the next decade, you're still going to need to know Objective-C, and this is a great book to learn with.

[Elbert Villarreal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro fácil de leer por como está estructurado. Va paso a paso en cada explicación, así que no se necesita ningún conocimiento sobre el lenguaje de C o Objective-C para poder entender. Esto es para todo el que se quiera iniciar en el mundo de las app para iPhone, iPad y Mac. Muy recomendado para todo programador beginner.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved the walk-throughs in this book. I have had to review and practice many of these exercises. Still need a lot of practice. The book might be a little dated now, though I couldn't tell you how or where. I really appreciate its content and the friend who gave it to me.

[Juris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good book to start learn Objective C language.

[Kevin Kirkhoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came into this endeavor (to learn iOS development in a casual, relaxed, non-work environment) with 30 years of programming experience with C, OpenGL, PHP, and just a hint of C++. This book and the Big Nerd Ranch series is highly regarded. That's bad for me because most times I expect to be blown away and I usually never am. This was no exception. While I did enjoy the casual presentation and the nice introduction to Objective-C without immediately jumping into iOS or Cocoa development, it still seemed a bit like a textbook. The projects were very simple and straightforward terminal apps. I think only one or two projects dealt with an iOS and then a Cocoa app. The last section was on Advanced Objective-C. Good stuff, but too overwhelming for a newbie Objective-C guy like me. It was still a good book and I plan to start on their iOS Programming book when I finish this review.
I was hoping for a lighter more casual book like the Head Start or Head First series from O'Reilly. To be fair, I should (and probably will) read Programming In Objective-C by Kochan, which is considered the Objective-C "bible". I did give it 4 stars because I thought it was good although I was hoping for something more casual and light.

[Dav · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very clear, comprehensive and concise introduction to programming via the Objective-C language. Before reading through this, I would have said Objective-C is probably too advanced (compared to something like ruby or python) for a novice, but the author seems to do a great job introducing a lot of the necessary principles and quirks of the language in an amazingly small number of pages. In addition to the basics there are some sections on low level C operations you tend to run across, a good section on blocks and most of the gotchas seem to get a mention as well. I think a novice would in fact do very well to work through this book in their quest to build that iOS app they're obsessing over. Combined with the Apple development tools, Apple documentation, and other online resources, this should get pretty much anyone going.

It would have been nice if it in some way separated the gotchas into an easy to skim through format so that more advanced readers could quickly pick tem out more quickly. I didn't find any that I wasn't already aware of, but wouldn't be surprised if a few tidbits were missed while skimming the chapters.

[Mohamad El-husseini · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is book offers a great intro to Objective-C. I highly recommended learning Objective-C before Swift, unless you have a strong background in statically typed languages. iOS is written almost entirely in Objective-C, so it's difficult to get anything meaningful done without looking at Objective-C libraries. For example, I found myself falling back to C and Objective-C while mocking around with a markdown parser. Besides being easy to digest, this book does a fabulous job of teaching programming concepts that are applicable in any object-oriented language. Such concepts are rarely found in Swift tutorials, which focus on the syntax and basic CS concepts like types, data structures, and collections, but very little on design and architecture. This is akin to knowing words without being able to put them together to form a meaningful sentence.

My only critique is that, in some instances, basic but important concepts are overlooked, or assumed to be known to the reader, which is not the case. Great book.

[An Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow this book is huge!!! Around 800 pages total!

I stopped reading towards the end when the content shifted back to plain old C so I can't comment on that section.

The rest of the material is extremely beginner-friendly. None of the challenges every felt overwhelming and could be solved in 5-10 minutes.

While the book itself is fairly huge, the material is chunked very reasonably and divided up so you can tackle it at a nice steady pace. Seriously, everything was incredibly easy to understand and the authors never try to show off or throw unnecessary information at you. It's all about getting you to understand the material.

I now understand why Big Nerd Ranch gets such high praise from others. They definitely have a new fan!

[Hector · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for someone that wants to begin understanding how to program in Objective-C.
I had already taken C programming courses several years ago but I had forgotten most of the basics and this book was exactly what I needed to remember them. If you have no experience programming though I think this book will be really confusing because it deals briefly with all the major topics in programming although it is not enough for fully understanding them.
With this book you won't be an expert in programming for MacOs nor iOS but it will give you the bases for understanding more advanced books.

[Ilya Kalimulin, PhD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Первая техническая книга, прочитанная мной от корки до корки, за черт знает сколько лет. Написана хорошо, интересно и не занудно. Автор шарит в том, как нужно учить, материал и примеры подобраны к друг другу. Теперь я знаю, зачем в ObjC скобочки и плюсики и минусики. Книга рассчитана на совсем новичков, что следует иметь в виду.

Отдельное спасибо издательству Питер. Сначала начинал читать скан в виде фоток, понравилось, написал в издательство и попросил выложить в магазине электронную копию. Через несколько дней, к моему удивлению, они это сделали и я купил уже нормальный pdf.

[Amp Tanawat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say this book is one of the best intro-to-programming-language books I have read. The hardest bit of writing intro book is how you put a more details here and skip some details there. The authors of this book did this things great.
You will not become an expert in Objective-c with this book. But you are guaranteed to get a whole picture and concepts and this will help you grow your knowledge with other resources in the future.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I lost momentum on this book a few months ago when life got busy. Now that Apple has announced Swift, I'm not motivated to pick it up again.

The author has blogged that you need to know Objective-C to really know Swift. If that's true, I'll probably be back in a few months. But so far it doesn't feel very necessary.

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just the right amount of info needed for someone who just wants to explore the language, play with it for a little and decides later if they want to move to the more advanced stuff.

I loved it, so simple an not complicated (doesn't go in depth) it touches each topic with what you want to know in general (an overview)

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

BNR was recommended to me by a friend and I've got to give it to them, they did a great job going through key concepts in iOS development ranging from layouts, the view stack, how to navigate Xcode, and more. Highly recommended if you're looking to learn about iOS development. Am considering picking up the Android and Swift books.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a very good book. It doesn't match the way I learn at all. I find Kochan's primer much easier to follow. I'd give more detail, but I don't think I have enough Objective-C experience to put it properly into words.

[Darius · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone wanting to get into Mac or iOS programming. Start here unless you are 100% confident of your Objective-C and Xcode skills.

This book does assume that you are at least comfortable with the C programming language, on which Objective-C is built.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for learning Objective-C, possible for an absolute beginner to learn from, though it'd be a tough ride. Most of the material in here is covered again in the other Big Nerd Ranch guide, iOS programming, so purchasing it is optional if you're just aiming to do iOS development.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having read both this and Stephen Kochan's "Programming in Objective-C", I can definitely say the latter is the superior book for a clear, concise introduction to the Objective-C programming language.

[Deryck Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this a few months back when my company took up our current iOS project. I wanted to brush up on my Objective-C knowledge, and this book was excellent for that. It's well done, and a good book for experienced programmers.

[Magdalena Nemesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book for those who is learning iOS development. It teaches Objective C through C. If one does not know C, it requires some learning curve. Chapters are short and give a good base for understanding basics of iOS programming.

[Ivan Pavlov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a reader good understanding of basic rules coding in objective c, though it's more like a encyclopedia of terms and patterns, not really satisfied with the 'story line' of the examples performed in challenges. Probably would not recommend as your first objective c book.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good beginner's guide and refresher to C and Objective-C syntax and features. Would highly recommend this for anyone who have a little bit of programming knowledge and want to get into Objective-C.

[Gabriel Tarpian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic. It's perfect if you know a little programming and want to learn how to develop iOS or macOS applications. However, this book gives you a start, but you need to study & work more on your own

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a more basic book than I was expecting but it's not a bad introduction to Objective-C programming.

[Gabriel Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, easy to read programming book. Hillegass really knows his audience and his iOS. The only problem I had is that there weren't enough challenges for the reader to do.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect primer for Objective-C.

[Rafael · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice and clear!

[Glenn Burnside · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to the core of the language. Definitely need one of their follow-on volumes to actually build applications, though.