Reviews for Objective-C for Dummies

1. It got me writing Objective-C code

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   I like this book as it was exactly what I needed. My last serious bit of coding was 25 years ago and I've never done anything with C before. The explanations are straight forward and while I'm only half way through there has not been anything thats so difficult I've had to go off and research it. If you do buy this book, pay a visit to the authors web site. There's a Errata document that contains 19 corrections which are mostly in the text and not the example programs. While the other reviewers have said it's littered with typos I've not noticed any that were not in the Errata sheet.

2. Plenty of good gen - plenty of typos

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2010

   I learned a lot from this book. Nevertheless, as reviewed by someone else, it's got plenty of typographic errors. However, you can decipher the correct meaning without too much trouble.
   
   I bought it to get going with iPhone app development, and it certainly got me on my way. I have a 20 year-old Computer Science degree, and it seems people are using C differently these days! Apart from some distant memories of C, I was effectively a novice when I started. I now have a good grasp of Objective-C, and it came from this book.
   
   I also bought Goldstein's iPhone App Development for Dummies, but I reckon Sam's Teach Yourself iPhone App Development in 24hrs is better. Again Goldstein's book is blighted by typos, and although he has a pleasant writing style, the breadth of his subject matter is much narrower than in the Sam's book.
   
   This'll get you a decent grounding in Objective-C, but if you want to use Objective-C to program the iPhone, take a look at some of the books not in the 'For Dummies' series.

3. Good intentions let down by poor proofreading

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, February 12nd, 2010

   Like a previous reviewer Im an old C++ coder from the days of Borland C trying to get back into coding. I figured this book would help.
   
   Im halfway through it now and I have to say Im a little disappointed. The structure of the book, while trying to give as much scope for future learning, is jumbled and distorted leaving you feeling quite bewildered. The author teaches you methods in a kind of structured way but its not helped by him constantly referencing stuff that he'll get to in later chapters and not giving reasonable examples of the parts you're covering in actual use.
   
   I think the books real problem however is a substantial typo issue and problems in code naming. More than once I've had to double check my entries and then make guesses as the printed code you're supposed to add is written wrong (my favourite typo so far being "[NSMutableArrwwwwwwwwwwway alloc]" which should have been "[NSMutableArray alloc]"). Obviously for someone learning this from scratch this would be a big problem to overcome!
   
   The naming convention he uses doesn't help either and it took me a while to figure out that an item called "Budget" were in fact two separate items just named the same.
   
   Its an ok book in that it covers what you need to know but I needed to search the net to find better definitions and examples a lot of the time. I've not tried another book so I couldn't recommend a better one but I'd treat this one with caution.

4. Recommended by certified Dummy!

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2009

   This book is just what I was after.
   I've always looked at the 'Whatever for Dummies' series of books as books for complete novices or teaching at a level below what I'd require.
   I was wrong in this case however and have learnt that you shouldn't judge a book by what is 'written' on the cover.
   
   I have some experience of programming in C but that was many years ago and have little experience in object-oriented programming so I felt a little out of my depth when reading other books on Objective-C as they made assumptions on the readers level of knowledge. This meant that I would have read and re-read a chapter followed by my own research on the internet to fully understand what was being written about. However, the opposite has been true when using this book. It takes you through fundamental concepts step by step, clearly explaining the logic and techniques being used and even highlights areas for further reading when a topic moves beyond the scope of the book.
   
   I'm about half way through the book now and am very glad I made this purchase.