iPhone® Application Development All-In-One For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Using Objective-C's Extensions to C for iPhone Development

In This Chapter

• Knowing how Objective-C works

• Understanding objects and classes

• Getting the naming conventions down pat

• Seeing how objects are created

• Checking out the standard way to do initialization

• Working with declared properties

Objective-C is an object-oriented programming language, which means that it was created to support a certain style of programming. Yes, there are many different styles, but unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool member of a particular camp, it's really unnecessary to get into that discussion now (or probably ever). Objective-C has its fans and its detractors, but my advice is to ignore both sides and get on with your development. There are some things I really like about the language, and others I don't, but in essence, it is what it is, and it is what you'll use.

You can pick up quite a bit about object-oriented programming in this book, but if you want a deeply intimate understanding of it, get Neal's Objective-C For Dummies (a shameless plug). After you read that book, you'll probably wonder why anyone would ever want to program in any other way.

As you might guess, object-oriented programs are built around objects — no surprise here. But a word to the wise: Keep your objects as ignorant as possible about the environment in which they work and the other objects they use. This is called encapsulation — an object hides all the details of how it works while allowing other objects to use its methods. ...