Core Animation tutorial screencasts

The Pragmatic Bookshelf has published a series of Core Animation tutorials, that are available for purchase and download. These four screencasts walk you through the process of building Xcode projects and incorporating Core Animation features into them.

Each tutorial runs for about a twenty to thirty minutes and includes a live voice over by developer Bill Dudney. They take you step-by-step through the development process for several projects.

Don’t look for a general overview of Core Animation and the technology behind it in these videos. They take it for granted that you know the vocabulary (such as layers and timing functions) and that you understand what Core Animation should do. The videos help you to move that knowledge into Xcode. These videos are best for the self-reliant programmer who’s looking for a little bit of low-cost hand-holding while getting started. Each of the four tutorials cost five dollars and are available in both full-screen and iPod-compatible resolutions.

[pragprog]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Bookwatch: Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X gets updated

Way back in December, our Christmas Gift Guide featured our pick of the many OS X-related books out there. One of the recommendations was the (very excellent) Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass - commonly referred to as ‘The Bible’ in the Mac development community.

At the time the book was a little outdated — however in the last couple of weeks an updated third edition has been published. New sections feature Objective-C 2.0, Core Data, Garbage Collection, Xcode 3 and Core Animation, meaning this third edition is all ready for many of the new technologies in Mac OS X Leopard.

At just $32 (via Amazon.com), this updated version clearly ought to be on every developer’s bookshelf (and aspiring developer’s wishlist).[Read]

Popularity: 11% [?]