Pragmatic Bookshelf has released "Cocoa Programming: A Quick-Start Guide for Developers" (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781934356302/?utm_content=em-pb-pr-Cocoa+Pro...), an $32.90, 280-page book by Daniel Steinberg that looks at Apple's Cocoa frameworks. The author shows readers the shortcuts, best resources, and places to avoid. He presents best practices and insider tips for finding more information.

Readers will finish the book as Cocoa programmers, primarily for desktop Mac OS X but with portability to the iPhone, iPad, and mobile platforms, Steinberg says. As early as the second chapter, they'll use Apple's Xcode and Interface Builder dev tools to create a web browser, then they'll dive into the square brackets and unique syntax of Objective-C, the language of Cocoa.

Throughout the four sections of the book, Steinberg emphasizes the wisdom of using and reusing all the methods, classes, tools, and resources built into the Cocoa frameworks. The book begins with you creating an application with almost no code.

"You then spend the bulk of the book mastering different coding techniques," says Steinberg. "By the end, you will again be writing less code. This time, however, you will understand sophisticated techniques that allow you to create powerful and flexible applications by writing only the code that is required."

He's the editor for the new series of Mac Developer titles for the Pragmatic Programmers. He writes feature articles for Apple's ADC web site and is a regular contributor to Mac Devcenter. He has presented at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, MacWorld, MacHack and other Mac developer conferences.