In summary, Maher Ali has released a comprehensive book that covers a wide variety of topics. Hopefully, in future editions, the font and typography used to illustrate example code will be improved. Also, as this material evolves I hope to see additional examples and information provided in the chapters covering more advanced topics, as well as better introductory material to make sure novice C programmers can come up to speed more quickly….Click Title for Full Review

I think this book excellent at explaining the concepts and taking you from novice to understanding and applying Core Animation techniques in your next application. If you are new to Cocoa and the Mac then I would not recommend this be the first book you read, but for anyone who is serious about Cocoa development, then this book should be on your bookshelf.

Pragmatic Thinking & Learning: Refactor Your Wetware is a unique book that explores a variety of theories on how the brain works; offering tips, tricks, and advice to take full advantage of ways to learn, solve problems, and ultimately find what lies beyond the realm of expertise. Basically, this book will show you how to supercharge your brain! Through a careful application of equal amounts theory and practical activities, Andy Hunt takes us on a tour of the inner workings of the mind, pointing out areas that can be fine-tuned to achieve a more efficient learning experience. Although the book was written with agile software developers in mind, it remains fairly approachable for anyone with a basic grasp of programming concepts. If you are looking for ways to become more effective at your job, accelerate and enhance your learning process, or simply want to learn more about the greatest computer of all — the brain, consider picking up a copy of this book. Read Full Review for More Details

This book is for inexperience programmers or people who have never programmed before looking to start programming on the Mac. I have been a programmer to long to really be able to know how well it will reach this audience but as an experienced programmer who has read many crappy books in his time I do know this is a great book by a man who knows how to explain things very well.

I’m just getting ready to ship my first piece of software (keep an eye our for it) and I thought ‘Ship It!’ by the ‘Pragmatic Programmers’ would be a pertinent read. That’s the only place I’d fault it, where I thought it would be about getting your project off the ground; instead it’s about steering you in the right direction – nonetheless I learnt a great deal from it. I’ve enjoyed their other publications and always look forward to learning something new. Briefly summarized it’s a book in two halves; things that you Really Should Be Doing, then the why and the how. There’s also a handy tips sheet at the end which highlights the main points of the book.

Release It is a great book if your day job, like mine, is to create enterprise systems that integrate lots of sub-systems. The author clearly states “I’ve targeted this book at architects, designers, and developers of enterprise-class software systems—this includes websites, web services, and EAI projects, among others.” For an Indie Mac developer or an up-and-coming iPhone developer, unless what you’re making is enterprise-class software that needs to integrate with lots of sub-system, you probably want to give this book a miss.

Pragmatic Version Control: Using Subversion By Mike mason is a great introduction to using Subversion, covering many aspects in great detail. This book provides a really useful resource for beginners and more advanced users alike. The book spans many topics from setting up a repository to advanced features such as merging branches, each one given a dedicated ‘recipe’ for use. The only real flaw with this book is the flow is occasionally spoilt by info boxes throughout the text, however despite this it will be a mainstay on my desk in the future!

Pragmatic Version Control Using Git provides a good overview and introduction to using Git for version control. The book covers all the basic concepts of distributed version control systems (DVCS), and provides a hands-on guide to all the basic Git features, and some advanced ones. The book is well written, in general the examples are useful and serve to clearly illustrate the points, and the book provides enough information to get started and exploring on your own. It does not contain a lot of advanced usage of Git, nor is it a Git reference tome, but after reading it, you will have enough knowledge to dig through the ample git documentation and discover all the functionality that is not described in the book.