My First App 1.0 Alpha 1 Ships!

Saturday, March 3, 2007

Today marks a major milestone in my new career as a Cocoa developer: I've delivered the first alpha version of my first Cocoa application to a few friends. w00t!

I feel like I've gone from zero to sixty in about four months. Let's see, what have I've learned (or relearned since my Big Nerd Ranch training) with this project? Here's a small sample:

 - Core Data
 - Cocoa Bindings
 - Web Kit
 - Toolbars
 - Table Views
 - Split Views
 - Custom NSViews
 - Menu Management
 - Reading From & Writing To Disk Files
 - 3rd-party Frameworks (Growl & Sparkle)

I'd guess that Core Data and Cocoa Bindings consumed about 50% of my time on this project. If you're a new Cocoa developer, go ahead and dive right into Cocoa Bindings. It's well worth learning early-on. But avoid trying to also learn Core Data in your first project. In my opinion, the combination of Core Data and Cocoa Bindings together is too much for a novice developer. It was for me anyway. But after pulling out most of my hair, I think I've finally got a handle on it.

I started this simple little application as a way to learn Cocoa. It's worked great for that. In fact, I think trying to write an application that you intend to publish is the best way to learn a language. The difference between writing an application you can throw away and an application to publish is huge. The devil is in the details.

So here's a sneak peek at what I sent my friends today. I'll let you see more when it's finished.

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