“Next time some kid shows up at my door asking for a code review, this is the book that I am going to throw at him.”
–Aaron Hillegass, founder of Big Nerd Ranch, Inc., and author of Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
Unlocking the Secrets of Cocoa and Its Object-Oriented Frameworks
Mac and iPhone developers are often overwhelmed by the breadth and sophistication of the Cocoa frameworks. Although Cocoa is indeed huge, once you understand the object-oriented patterns it uses, you’ll find it remarkably elegant, consistent, and simple.
Cocoa Design Patterns begins with the mother of all patterns: the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern, which is central to all Mac and iPhone development. Encouraged, and in some cases enforced by Apple’s tools, it’s important to have a firm grasp of MVC right from the start.
The book’s midsection is a catalog of the essential design patterns you’ll encounter in Cocoa, including
- Fundamental patterns, such as enumerators, accessors, and two-stage creation
- Patterns that empower, such as singleton, delegates, and the responder chain
- Patterns that hide complexity, including bundles, class clusters, proxies and forwarding, and controllers
And that’s not all of them! Cocoa Design Patterns painstakingly isolates 28 design patterns, accompanied with real-world examples and sample code you can apply to your applications today. The book wraps up with coverage of Core Data models, AppKit views, and a chapter on Bindings and Controllers.
Cocoa Design Patterns clearly defines the problems each pattern solves with a foundation in Objective-C and the Cocoa frameworks and can be used by any Mac or iPhone developer.
Praise for CocoaDesign Patterns
“This long-needed book is a great resource for Cocoa newcomers and veterans who want to get the why behind the what. The list of patterns gives historical perspective and answers many developer questions and the last three chapters–covering Core Data, AppKit, and Bindings–are a must-read; they reveal insights that might otherwise require hours of discussion with Apple engineers or access to source code.”
–Tim Burks, Software Developer and Creator of the Nu Programming Language, www.programming.nu
“This book is a comprehensive and authoritative treatment of design patterns and their practical applications in Cocoa projects. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to advance from intermediate to expert proficiency as a Macintosh developer.”
–John C. Randolph, Vice President Engineering, Stealth Imaging, Inc.
“Cocoa Design Patterns is a fantastic book that will show you the ins and outs of software design patterns, how Cocoa makes use of them, and how to apply them to your own applications for better, more robust, and more maintainable software.”
–August Trometer, Owner of FoggyNoggin Software
“Cocoa Design Patterns is superb! It is highly readable, thoroughly enjoyable, and filled to the brim with wisdom that will make you a more efficient and effective programmer. The authors utilize a consistent and self-contained approach to each chapter, making it easy to return to use as a reference. However, the material is so interesting and vital to Cocoa programmers that you’ll want to read it from cover to cover.”
–David Mandell, Independent Developer
“Erik and Donald’s book really helped me out with the conceptual side of programming. It caused me to realize where I was going wrong in my code and helped me sort out my design issues.”
–Eoin Houlihan
“This book is recommended for any programmer interested in a deeper understanding of Cocoa. Reading it might have helped me become a better software engineer in any object-oriented language. I’ll keep it handy as a constant reference and look forward to reading it again more carefully.”
–Daryl Spitzer
