What You’ll Learn

Upon completion of Beginning Cocoa, the student will be able to:

• Understand classes, objects, and methods
• Write a first program in Objective-C
• Define classes and write instance and class methods
• Use inheritance
• Take advantage of polymorphism and dynamic typing
• Work with the preprocessor
• Utilize underlying C features
• Use the basic Foundation classes (numbers, arrays, dictionaries, sets, etc.)
• Properly manage memory using ARC while preventing memory leaks and retain cycles
• Demonstrate fluency in Objective-C
• Write complex applications for Mac OS X
• Demonstrate fluency in Objective-C
• Master Interface Builder and Xcode
• Find and understand the online documentation
• Demonstrate experience with the most common classes in the frameworks
• Understand the design patterns used in Cocoa
• Recognize several common idioms of the Cocoa community

Beginning Cocoa SYLLABUS

Section	Contents
Open Objective-C
Why am I here?	An introduction to the instructor, Objective-C, and the course contents.
Classes and Objects	A brief introduction to the concepts of OOP programming.
Messages and Methods	How work gets done in an Objective-C program.
NSString	Work with strings.
Constants	Using #define and global variables
Preprocessor	Understand what can be done by the preprocessor.
Your First Class	Writing your own classes.
Inheritance	The root. Extension through inheritance. Overriding methods.
retain and release	Introduction to Memory Management.
NSAutoreleasePool	Understand the autorelease stack.
Collection Classes	Arrays, dictionaries, and sets.
Writing files	NSString and NSData.
Callbacks	A brief introduction to target-action, helper objects, anf notifications.
Protocols	Required and optional methods for arbitrary objects.
init	Convenience and designated initializers.
Open Cocoa I Bootcamp
Why am I here?	An introduction to Cocoa, the instructor, and the course.
Get started	Build a simple app. Discuss tools, frameworks, and workflow.
Objective-C	Master the Objective-C language in two hours.
Controls	Use the target/action design pattern.
Helper Objects	Use the delegation design pattern.
Controller and Bindings	Use bindings to eliminate a lot of glue code.
Toward a Deeper Understanding of Bindings	A series of experiments that explain what bindings are and how they work.
Undo	Allow your users to undo and redo their edits.
Core Data	Use CoreData with bindings to create full-featured applications easily.
Archiving	Serialize and deserialize object graphs using keyed archiving.
Nib Files and NSWindowController	Discover what "File's Owner" really means.
User defaults	Save and use preferences
Using Notifications	Register for notifications. Post notifications. Handle notifications.
Alerts	Make the user confirm their choices with an alert panel.
Localization Internationalization	Prepare your application for the global marketplace.
Custom views	Do custom drawing. Learn to save your view as a PDF.
Images and Mouse events	Make your custom view deal with mouse events, images, and the open panel.
Responders and Keyboard events	Make your custom view deal with keyboard events.
Fonts and Attributed strings	Draw character strings in your custom view and understand how Mac OS X deals with rich text.
Pasteboards and nil-targeted Actions	Implement copy, cut, and paste. Understand how to take advantage of the responder chain.
Categories	Add a method to an existing class without subclassing.
Drag and Drop	Add drag and drop to your custom views.
NSTimer	Create and use timers.
Sheets	Display sheets on your application's windows.
Formatters	Format a character string and convert it to an object with a custom formatter subclass.
OpenGL and Cocoa	Create and manipulate 3-D views in your Cocoa app.
Core Animation	Learn to use CALayer for animation and custom interfaces.
iOS SDK	A brief introduction to the iOS SDK. This will be the first step in transferring your knowledge of Cocoa to the iPhone or iPad.
Processes	Create Unix processes and communicate with them from a Cocoa application.
Web Services	Use NSURLConnection and NSXMLParser to interact with web services.
Memory Management	Learn to manage your application's memory using ARC and retain counts.
Table Views	Use cell- and view-based table views to display data.
Core Data Relationships	Use Core Data to create more sophisticated object graphs using relationships.
Blocks	Use blocks to make your code more powerful and easier to maintain.
Concurrency	Learn the basics of multithreading in Cocoa.
Instruments	Learn how Instruments can help with analyzing performance and memory issues in your application.
Debugging	Get familiar with the Xcode's graphical debugger as well as the lldb console.
Application Architecture	Learn how to use Model-View-Controller to structure a complex, maintainable Cocoa application.

REQUIREMENTS

Without prior experience in either a procedural programming language (such as C, Pascal, VB, or PHP) or another object-oriented platform (such as Java or C#) this class may prove to be extremely challenging.