Compact and full of information on a weird language.

As an advanced C++ programmer trying to pick up Objective-C (a weird freakin' language if you ask me), I found this little Pocket Reference to be invaluable. For one thing, its really small which I like -- who needs another tome to litter the bookshelves? I find that it is well written, I actually just started reading it from the beginning and found it to be pretty easy to follow. Finally I = [[NSString alloc] initWithString:@"Understand"]; the crazy formatting for Objective-C methods which just looked like jibberish to me at first. Believe me, after 20 years of programming I can usually understand languages that I've never touched before -- I really needed this book to help me get a handle on Objective-C and it did a commendable job.

Negatives: of course, this is not exactly comprehensive. Since I am also learning Cocoa, I would have liked a little more Cocoa material mixed in. I did find that the writing was at times a bit confusing when discusssing some of the more abstruse concepts of Objective-C. And, always, I like lots of real code examples -- perhaps that just isn't feasible in a book this compact.

Overall, this is a very good book for a newcomer to Objective-C. With this in one hand and Google in the other I can get by quite nicely as I write my iPhone Apps.

Other Reviews

• Great book for experienced programmers
• Concise but dated
• Compact and full of information on a weird language.
• Convenience Pocket Reference