I've heard developers grumble about newbies who hardly know any C or other low-level technology, and jump right into Cocoa and Obj-C. What's your take on this?
My take is do what works. If you ship an app and it makes the user happy, who cares how much you know about bit shifting?
Some people are happier learning all the lower-level stuff first, and that's fine. But not everyone is wired that way. Some people would rather learn as they go, and research lower-level things when the need arises.
If someone is serious about developing GUI apps in Cocoa, shouldn't he or she at least work through Kernighan and Ritchie before firing up InterfaceBuilder?
My opinion about that is it's a bit like learning the details of how an engine works before you're allowed to drive a car.
KR is well-respected book, but it's written for someone who's looking to write C programs. Prospective Cocoa programmers need to know C syntax to get started, not the guts of C itself.
by Scott Stevenson — Oct 23
My take is do what works. If you ship an app and it makes the user happy, who cares how much you know about bit shifting?
Some people are happier learning all the lower-level stuff first, and that's fine. But not everyone is wired that way. Some people would rather learn as they go, and research lower-level things when the need arises.
If someone is serious about developing GUI apps in Cocoa, shouldn't he or she at least work through Kernighan and Ritchie before firing up InterfaceBuilder?
My opinion about that is it's a bit like learning the details of how an engine works before you're allowed to drive a car.
KR is well-respected book, but it's written for someone who's looking to write C programs. Prospective Cocoa programmers need to know C syntax to get started, not the guts of C itself.