Early on in this book (chapter 1), the authors present a line graph illustrating the growth of Objective-C from 2002 through 2012. The graph spikes dramatically around mid-2009. This graph interestingly mirrors how a reader with moderate proficiency in such programming languages as C, C++, and Java will experience this book. About two-thirds of the way through, proficient readers will enjoy a sudden spike in mastery over what has been presented thus far. Readers without such a background will struggle to become comfortable with Objective-C.

The book consists of nine substantive chapters, followed by a necessarily brief discussion of distribution streams for applications. These nine chapters cover what a programmer needs to know to write effective code in Objective-C. The book’s treatment of theoretical topics such as object-oriented programming and the features of Objective-C nicely complement the gritty details of application programming interfaces (APIs), the file system, networking, user interfaces, and data management. Of particular usefulness are the two chapters that walk the reader through developing a rudimentary but broadly applicable project. These chapters also serve as a summary of the book.

The authors have achieved a supple integration of narration, code fragments, and tables that complement each other to accelerate learning. The chapter on the file system illustrates the explanatory power of each component. The authors casually discuss the file system and its complexities; provide tables that, for example, describe each element in a path; and succinctly describe resource specifiers. Extended code fragments that illustrate, for instance, how to write a file focus the reader’s attention and provide a grounding in details of the language.

Programmers and prospective developers desiring a hands-on familiarity with Objective-C will find this book well suited to their purposes. After working through the code, these readers will be well positioned to write applications.