Cocoa Programming for OS X

Book excerpt: Covering the bulk of what you need to know to develop full-featured applications for OS X, this edition is updated for OS X Yosemite (10.10), Xcode 6, and Swift. Written in an engaging tutorial style and class-tested for clarity and accuracy, it is an invaluable resource for any Mac programmer. The authors introduce the two most commonly used Mac developer tools: Xcode and Instruments. They also cover the Swift language, basic application architecture, and the major design patterns of Cocoa. Examples are illustrated with exemplary code, written in the idioms of the Cocoa community, to show you how Mac programs should be written. After reading this book, you will know enough to understand and utilize Apple’s online documentation for your own unique needs. And you will know enough to write your own stylish code. This edition was written for Xcode 6.3 and Swift 1.2. At WWDC 2015, Apple announced Xcode 7 and Swift 2, both of which introduce significant updates that (along with some changes to Cocoa for OS X 10.11) affect some of the exercises in this book. We have prepared a companion guide listing the changes needed to use Xcode 7 to work through the exercises in the book; it is available at https://github.com/bignerdranch/cocoa-programming-for-osx-5e/blob/master/Swift2.md.