Documentation and Getting Help in Objective-C

Drawer QR Code in Objective-C Documentation and Getting Help

If you are just beginning programming, I have a secret to tell you Most developers are not necessarily all-knowing on the language for which they are developing, the author included A senior developer might claim in his or her book s bio to have had experience with OS X since in diapers, but in reality, most have not What these senior developers have learned, though, are the broader principles behind programming They have also learned how to access online help and distinguish between good help and bad help Moreover, they can translate the help into reaching their own particularly needed solution But believe me, except for the rare genius, a senior developer is not writing a program by accessing his or her brain s vast encyclopedic knowledge without consulting documentation I still have to consult my last book, iPhone SDK Programming: A Beginner s Guide (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009), when writing iPhone applications There are simply too many things to know about the iPhone SDK for me to have remembered them all Keeping these limitations in mind, here are some information sources I reference frequently

The iPhone SDK comes with considerable documentation Download it and read it books like the one you are reading now should supplement and not replace the documentation And if you prefer a book s familiarity, the documentation has links to related Apple manuals that are freely downloadable as PDFs In fact, most of what you need to know about Objective-C, the iPhone SDK, and Cocoa are covered in these documents

In the United States, the FedEx Store (formerly Kinko s) charges about five dollars to bind documentation Print Apple s PDF documents as you need them and have them bound As my wife will attest, I have these coil-bound documents scattered throughout my home office, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom The printed documentation is invaluable, as last time I checked, you would be ill-advised to take a PDF on your laptop in the bath with you to read

Apple s iPhone Dev Center contains all the documentation needed to begin It also has example applications that you can download These applications are good as both learning tools and sources to glean source code from for your own applications (provided you comply with Apple s code licensing) The site also features important content and lets you search the site for specific content The iPhone Development forum on Apple s site is another vital location for information These forums are where a developer can ask for help with specific problems he or she might be having Other developers then reply with solutions to the problem You can often find a solution to your problem by searching through previously solved problems other developers might have had You should note that Google does not seem to index this forum very well, and so you cannot rely upon Google finding specific posts in these forums But the forum is particularly useful, as Apple has staff members who regularly respond to many postings, so when faced with a problem, you should visit the forums, as chances are someone else already had the problem and somebody posted an answer to it

Despite Apple s comprehensive information, I usually google when faced with a problem or I have a question about technology Google searches usually return the relevant documentation, any tutorials or blogs discussing the issue, and forum posts from others with the same question you might have The iPhone is currently a hot topic; you will find many resources on the web But be certain the information is current, as the iPhone SDK has changed dramatically since its inception and will continue changing