A Taste of Cocoa

So, last night I started applying the Cocoa/Objective-C knowledge I gained early on in this journey. I am pleased to say, that Cocoa & Interface Builder are a pleasure to use. I can see why when John Carmack, first created the editor for Doom, he trekked miles through the snow to buy a Next machine. I can in seconds create the UI of my Animation Viewer tool, and tie the components together.

For anyone who doesn't know, Next machines and NextStep are the foundation of Cocoa and if you don't know John Carmack, then I guess you aren't into game development. It's like asking anyone who knows anything about religion, if they have ever heard of Christ, Muhammad, or Buddha. I'm not trying to single out anyone religion, pick any famous religious prophet you like, you get the idea...I am not trying to offend or have anyone putting a "crusade," "jihad", or whatever against me...I'm just a developer...just a developer! :)

As, I mentioned in earlier postings I'm bridging C++ and Objective-C, so the crux of my work is in C++ because I'm most familiar with it, and can go faster, but I know enough Objective-C to get myself in trouble. :)

I plan to do a bit more tinkering with Cocoa & IB, for the next 2-3 days, and then get onto coding up the Animation Viewer tool.

I haven't shown my status in a while, so here it is...

Key (red = task completed, green = in progress, black = not started)
Tasks/Status

1) Learn the iPhone Tech - always a work in progress
* Download/install iPhone SDK
* Upgrade Mac OS $130
* Join iPhone Dev $99
* Read iPhone Docs/Samples
** iPhone OS Technology Overview
** Cocoa Fundamentals Guide
** iPhone Application Programming Guide
** iPhone Human Interface Guidelines
** iPhone Development Guide
** The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language
** Write little tests programs to learn the iPhone Capabilities (memory allocation, file I/O, iPhone audio, WiFi, graphics, etc...) - (sprite displayed by Dec. 15th)

2) Test my game concepts out on the iPhone
3) Build tool(s) if needed
4) Solidify Game Design
5) Architect the game code
6) Develop game w/ scratch art
7) Drop in real assets
8) Test/Debug
9) Ship It

In 73 days of learning/developing for the iPhone I've come a bit of a ways, but still a long, long road ahead. You know my mantra by now.