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General discussion

I want to learn how to develop Mac apps.

Feb 3, 2007 10:56AM PST

Yeah, I'm actually extremely interested in learning to develop applications (Mac only) as a hobby. I have some really great ideas, but barely a clue on how to put them to use.

As a HS student, my budget isnt exaclty high... in fact the roof's just about at the level of my head.. so spending little or no money is an important factor.

My house has an intel machine, but my personal one that I'd be using is an iMac G5 17" 1.9 GHz machine with just 512 MB of ram and a 160 GB HD with about 80 GB left.

Where should I go/what should I do/what should I buy to learn to develop?

Thanks in advanced
Alex

Discussion is locked

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Start here (link)
Feb 3, 2007 11:41AM PST
http://developer.apple.com/tools/

"Mac OS X provides you with a full suite of free developer tools to prototype, compile, debug, and optimize your applications, speeding up your development cycle."

Go get em.

Bob
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Thanks, Bob
Feb 3, 2007 11:48AM PST

I assume I'll start with XCode, only because Apple talks about it alot more. What programming languages will I need to know to use this software.. and where would I go to learn and reference them?

Thank you for the help,
Alex

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Ouch.
Feb 3, 2007 12:56PM PST

I take it that you didn't follow the link or your needs are not being met by the tools that are free?

Bob

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?
Feb 3, 2007 1:35PM PST

No I followed the link and downloaded XCode 2.4.. but I do not have sufficient knowledge of pretty much any type of programming languages to use it... it's all very confusing.

Did I miss anything to make you think I hadn't visited the link?

alex

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Then ...
Feb 3, 2007 2:18PM PST

You only need to keep at it. Start with the usual 'Hello world' and keep going.

Or maybe you wanted a non-programming language or system?

Bob

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dude try to help him out
Feb 3, 2007 8:37PM PST

programming is EXTREMELY confusing when you want to start it. I ahve asked on these forums about developing on a Mac only to reach to no conclusion.

R Proffit and everyone out there: Please help us beginners out by spoon feeding us. We dont understand a thing of all this jargon. Let em tell you what i know about programming:

C and C++ and C# are languages
A language tells a computer what to do
You neeed a compiler to make the program
I think xcode is a compiler
Java is a language
Perl Python are languages

Well I think thats all I know and ppl try to tell me stuff that I dont understand. Books: They ahve too much boring material about the authors life and all that foreward and introduction stuff without getting to the point.

PLZ HELP US PLZ

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Sorry, this small space.
Feb 3, 2007 10:29PM PST

This small space is not appropriate to hold classes in programming. The initial request has been satisfied with Apple providing free tools and documentation. It is up to you to read the documentation and take programming courses if need be.

Bob

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Okay....
Feb 3, 2007 11:13PM PST

I didnt realize Apple had guides on its website. I did not see anything called "Hello World" but I will read there Getting Started with Tools documents.

Like I said before, I know very litte of JavaScript, nothing of C++ and arent even aware of the other programming languages (unless HTML is one, which I know well). To build apps with Apple's tools do you need sufficient knowledge of these languages, or no?

Thanks,
Alex.

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Let me share where I started in my programming life.
Feb 3, 2007 11:33PM PST

My first code was for a GE-210 computer way back when. It took me about 2 months to learn enough about the machine and it's language to write my first program. Today many people want instant results without the usual investment of time.

The language of that day was assembler and it was great since it formed some deep understanding of what was going on inside the beast. The next year I took a class in Fortran IV and PL/1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLI PL 1 never paid off but learning Fortran helped since it was a 'root' language for many other languages to come.

Today I have projects the use C, Visual Basic, SQL, HTML and of course assembler.

Hope this gives you an idea what's involved and by all means stick with it.

About HELLO WORLD. It's the basic code that gets you your first sign of life from your selected language. More reading at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_world_program

A list of 300 versions of Hello World is noted but 99 bottles of beer has a bigger following with 1089 language versions at http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/

Bob

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Learning Programming
Mar 29, 2007 1:53AM PDT

I want to be kind with this post but if it seams otherwise then please forgive me.

With any desire to learn there are usually many possible actions, key word being action. If you want the skills badly enough, you will do the work. Learning programming is probably one of the easiest and toughest work. Easy in that you can pick up a few tricks but not program much of anything useful or tough in that you need to really buckle down if you intend to create what your ideas say you should.

What to do? I would either get past the "too boring to read" block or realize my maturity level is just not there yet. To assist, I would then look for night classes even if not credit earning. There are usually institutions presenting such classes. I would do this if I talked honestly to myself and realized that I am just not ready to teach myself.

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Wow You guys really missed the point
Jun 24, 2009 3:20AM PDT

Wow. You programmers are really the problem here. This guy is just asking for a little direction, not about your personal feelings on how to learn.

OK, so I know this is really late, but this is for those people who see this post from afterward.

The Apple documentation is great, but only if you know C. Which it says in the disclaimer right at the top of the page on Obj-C.

The preferred language for OSX is Objective-C

Objective-C is an 'extension' to C, regarded as the most versatile language out there. Start with C programming.

Here's some resources for C, Obj-C, and learning to program for the Mac.

http://www.cprogramming.com/
http://cocoadevcentral.com/
http://osx.hyperjeff.net/reference/CocoaArticles
http://www.cocoalab.com/
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cocoa_Programming/First_steps

There are many more but this will get people started.

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a real teacher at last, thanks for the info FuturamaFan
Jun 27, 2009 4:41AM PDT

thanks GururamaFam, ooops I mean FuturamaFan

guru, means 'teacher'... and that for sure is what you are. Thank you for giving discrete information without being 'i learned the hard way so you will have to also'. The original question was asked by a young person; they learn to teach others the way their elders teach them.

As a teacher myself with the street creds to show for it, your helpfulness, and heartfulness, is way more useful to those who are just starting out, than projections onto strangers about their supposed lack of maturity or whatever else

Thanks,
fellow traveler

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iOS Development
Sep 18, 2012 6:22PM PDT

Hi Alex. What progress have you made so far?

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all of them
Feb 25, 2012 2:33PM PST

It doesn't matter which one you know, if you don't know any try javascript first it it very easy i learned the basics in 3 hours

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7 Useful Mac Development Tools
Jul 9, 2009 6:03AM PDT

We love our Macs and the software we use on them. So, we decided it would be neat to make a post and share some of our favorite development applications, software and tools. I know you?re wondering, ?Why 7?? Well, we had to draw the line somewhere? And 10 just seemed so boring.
Coda
?Text editor + file transfer + svn + CSS + Terminal + Books + More = Whoah.?

SEEdit Maxi II
Since 2004, SEEdit - THE XHTML EDITOR FOR MACINTOSH has helped professionals and hobbyists worldwide developing clean and valid XHTML/CSS sites on Macintosh.

ScriptLight
Manage all of your Applescript Script, Applescript Text, Applescript Applications, Unix Shell Scripts, C, Objective-C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP, Verilog, VHDL, Tcl/Tk, Lua, and R code files

BitRock InstallBuilder
Turns application packaging and deployment into a fast, easy and cost-effective process for developers.

Serna XML Editor
Serna Enterprise is a powerful and easy-to-use XML editor which requires virtually no technical experience from authors.

ModelBaker
The easy way to create mobile and browser-based web applications.

Adobe AIR
Leverage existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.

Message was edited by: admin to remove Web link signature which is prohibited in these forums. Note to member, please use your CNET profile if you'd like to include a link to your Website. Thanks!

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Getting started in developing user applications
Aug 22, 2010 10:57PM PDT

My name is Ed Rickman, spent several years developing for ibm main-frames bal cobol idms cics, etc. I have some experience using BASIC and than is as modern as my exposure gets (I'm 69 years old). I wnt to develop a data collection application for personal use and have no clue how to start or which tools would work best for me. I can't even figure out how to access the development tools on my IMAC. Can anybody get me started. I love dog racing and want to develop a handicapping application that can scan the daily program pulling selected fields into a database then add data from the results (also in text format) to the database, then produce reports and queries to analyze the data. thank you

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Use iTunes to learn Programming
Mar 15, 2012 11:45AM PDT

HELLO:

Open iTunes and near the top right is a TAB titled "iTunes U". Click that and the find in the upper right teh "University and Colleges" LINK and click that.

This will open a large list of Universities and Colleges who have FREE learning modules that you can view on-line. You may be able to search for exactly the language you want to learn, I don't know for sure.

But, here's a starter. Go down to the "R" section and Select the Rock Valley College. There is a course on that list that is titled - I think - Beginning Visual Basic - Course No. 180. Sit back, listen, and then go hack away!!

You MAY even find some basic learning modules for X-Code apps, etc.