Learning the iOS 4 SDK for JavaScript Programmers: Create Native Apps with Objective-C and Xcode is a good getting started book for the right audience. I sit on the border of being in that audience, but did still manage to learn lots, and enjoy doing so.

In the JavaScript world there is a continuum from copy and paste HTML types passing by library ciders (experts in something like Jquery but not much else) on through to the people who live and breath Crockfords JavaScript: The Good Parts. The guys on the left know a couple of bits of JavaScript but struggle to get beyond a for loop. The guys on the right will argue about prototypal and classical inheritance and the merits and weaknesses of dynamically typed languages. Learning the iOS 4 SDK for JavaScript Programmers is clearly aimed at the 80% in the middle of the list(with a tendency towards the non-hardcore). The hardcore JavaScript programmers will almost certainly get frustrated with some of the imprecise statements and comparisons. While the analogies help non-experts understand Objective C, they don’t always get the true prototypal functional nature of JavaScript described right.

I picked this up as a way of getting into iPad development. Using it as a followup from the last book I read — App Savvy. When getting the book I knew I wasn’t in the exact target audience having spent many years doing java before recently moving to more full time JavaScript. I’m also on the right hand (almost) expert/heavy nerd JavaScript guy and have a bit of an understanding of how it works as a language, and so found the book a little off the mark. That said, I definitely learnt heaps and found it a helpful read. The fact that I didn’t have to go through the full details of C syntax and the author leveraged my JavaScript knowledge to explain was a definite plus. Overall I’d definitely recommend the book to the 80% in the middle and cautiously recommend it to the right hard core JavaScript programmers.

Related posts:

1. Real Programmers
2. Five things I learnt about Javascript this month
3. The Art of Community – Jono Bacon
4. JavaScript hacking