Chapters 8, 9, and 10 introduce you to several Foundation framework concepts.
Beginning with Chapter 8, the book diverges from presenting Objective-C language
concepts and begins presenting fundamental classes and concepts for programming for
the iPhone. These classes are all part of the Foundation framework, a collection of Apple-
provided code that makes writing applications easier. The concepts presented are tailored
to iPhone development, so no desktop-only classes or concepts are discussed. Chapter 8
explores several Foundation framework classes. These classes make string manipulation,
managing collections of objects, and reading and writing from files much easier. Chapter 9
presents the Foundation framework classes used for reading and writing to files. The
chapter also discusses the iPhone directories you have available and provides specific
code examples for working with those directories. Chapter 10 continues presenting
Foundation framework classes. In this chapter you learn about property lists, the NSCopy
protocol, and how to archive and de-archive your application’s objects to a file.
Chapter 11 introduces you to selectors and targets. Selectors and targets are initially
one of Objective-C’s more confusing aspects. However, you should take the time to
carefully learn these concepts, as they allow significant programming flexibility. In
essence, what these concepts allow is for a program to dynamically decide at runtime
what objects and methods to call. If you are familiar with Java’s reflection, then selectors
should not appear foreign. In fact, having worked extensively with both, I find using
Objective-C’s selectors and targets much easier than working with Java’s reflection.
Chapter 12 returns to basic object-oriented principles by discussing the Model-
View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. I end the book with the MVC for good reason.
It is fundamental to how you write programs for the iPhone SDK. Moreover, this design
pattern has a rich history and is arguably the single most influential concept leading to the
Mac and Windows operating systems. Without MVC, we just might still all be using DOS
prompts.
Accompanying Tutorial Videos
This book is only one of many books recently released on the Objective-C programming
language. Moreover, it is relatively late to arrive, as there are several other high-quality
beginner books already on the shelves. So why buy this book? First, as the author, of
course I believe this book to be superior to the other books. But more objectively, this
book offers video tutorials for all its Try This examples. Oftentimes, steps get lost in a
numbered list of printed steps. Moreover, small details are often missed. By offering video
tutorials, I hope to reinforce the tutorials presented in the book.
Introduction xv