Objective-C is a general purpose programming language which is a superset of the C programming language and provides object-oriented capabilities and a dynamic runtime. Objective-C inherits the syntax, primitive types, and flow control statements of C and adds syntax for defining classes and methods.
It also adds language-level support for object graph management and object literals while providing dynamic typing and binding, deferring many responsibilities until runtime. Objective-C can incorporate blocks of C code (as well as C++), making it very versatile for application development.
Objective-C is the primary programming language used when writing software for OS X and iOS.
1. Learn Objective-C in Y minutes by Eugene Yagrushki and contributors
This is one in a whole series covering a wide range of programming languages, released under a Creative Commons license.
2. Objectively Speaking: A Crash Course in Objective-C for iOS 6 by Razeware
This tutorial uses the Modern-Objective-C syntax.
3. Objective-C Runtime by Apple
Objective-C Runtime describes the macOS Objective-C runtime library support functions and data structures.
The Objective-C runtime is a runtime library that provides support for the dynamic properties of the Objective-C language, and as such is linked to by all Objective-C apps.
Because this isn’t a document about C, it assumes some prior acquaintance with that language.
4. Programming with Objective-C by Apple
This document introduces the Objective-C language and offers extensive examples of its use. You’ll learn how to create your own classes describing custom objects and see how to work with some of the framework classes provided by Cocoa and Cocoa Touch.
Although the framework classes are separate from the language, their use is tightly wound into coding with Objective-C and many language-level features rely on behavior offered by these classes
5. Introduction to Objective-C Programming by Will Harrison
Part 1 looks at:
- Object-oriented programming
- Classes and instances
- Inheritance and Class Hierarchy
- Objective-C syntax
- Differences between C/C++ and Objective-C
- Method composition and invoking
- Nested methods
Part 2 examines creating our own classes, as well as writing our first bit of code in Objective-C.
6. Ry’s Objective-C Tutorial by Ryan Hodson
This book serves as both a concise quick-reference and a comprehensive introduction for newcomers to the Objective-C programming language. It walks through each language feature step-by-step, explaining complex programming concepts via hands-on examples.
This tutorial focuses solely on the programming language, rather than on iOS or Mac App development. You won’t walk away with the ability to create your own iPad apps, but you will be prepared to continue down that path.
All tutorials in this series:
| Free Programming Tutorials | |
|---|---|
| Java | General-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, high-level language |
| C | General-purpose, procedural, portable, high-level language |
| Python | General-purpose, structured, powerful language |
| C++ | General-purpose, portable, free-form, multi-paradigm language |
| C# | Combines the power and flexibility of C++ with the simplicity of Visual Basic |
| JavaScript | Interpreted, prototype-based, scripting language |
| PHP | PHP has been at the helm of the web for many years |
| Ruby | General purpose, scripting, structured, flexible, fully object-oriented language |
| Assembly | As close to writing machine code without writing in pure hexadecimal |
| Swift | Powerful and intuitive general-purpose programming language |
| Groovy | Powerful, optionally typed and dynamic language |
| Go | Compiled, statically typed programming language |
| Pascal | Imperative and procedural language designed in the late 1960s |
| Perl | High-level, general-purpose, interpreted, scripting, dynamic language |
| R | De facto standard among statisticians and data analysts |
| COBOL | Common Business-Oriented Language |
| Scala | Modern, object-functional, multi-paradigm, Java-based language |
| Fortran | The first high-level language, using the first compiler |
| Scratch | Visual programming language designed for 8-16 year-old children |
| Lua | Designed as an embeddable scripting language |
| Logo | Dialect of Lisp that features interactivity, modularity, extensibility |
| Rust | Ideal for systems, embedded, and other performance critical code |
| Lisp | Unique features - excellent to study programming constructs |
| Ada | ALGOL-like programming language, extended from Pascal and others |
| Haskell | Standardized, general-purpose, polymorphically, statically typed language |
| Scheme | General-purpose, functional, language descended from Lisp and Algol |
| Prolog | General purpose, declarative, logic programming language |
| Forth | Imperative stack-based programming language |
| Clojure | Dialect of the Lisp programming language |
| Julia | High-level, high-performance language for technical computing |
| SQL | Access and manipulate data held in a relational database management system |
| Erlang | General-purpose, concurrent, declarative, functional language |
| VimL | Powerful scripting language of the Vim editor |
| OCaml | General-purpose, powerful, high-level language |
| Awk | Versatile language designed for pattern scanning and processing |
| Racket | Platform for programming language design and implementation |
| BASIC | Family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages |
| CoffeeScript | A very succinct programming language that transcompiles into JavaScript |
| LaTeX | Professional document preparation system and document markup language |
| Elixir | Relatively new functional language that runs on the Erlang virtual machine |
| Dart | Client-optimized programming language for fast apps |
| ABAP | Advanced Business Application Programming |
| F# | General purpose, strongly typed, multi-paradigm language. Part of ML |
| Chapel | Parallel-programming language in development at Cray Inc. |
| Dylan | Multi-paradigm language, supports functional & object-oriented programming |
| D | General-purpose systems programming language with a C-like syntax |
| Solidity | Object-oriented, high-level language for implementing smart contracts |
| XML | Set of rules for defining semantic tags that describe the structure and meaning |
| Vala | Object-oriented language with a self-hosting compiler that generates C code |
| ECMAScript | Best known as the language embedded in web browsers |
| Kotlin | Statically typed, general-purpose programming language with type inference |
| TypeScript | Strict syntactical superset of JavaScript, adding optional static typing |
| Markdown | Plain text formatting syntax designed to be easy-to-read and easy-to-write |
| Pike | Interpreted, general-purpose, high-level, cross-platform, dynamic language |
| HTML | HyperText Markup Language |
| Factor | Dynamic stack-based language |
| Objective-C | General purpose language which is a superset of C |
| Standard ML | One of the two main dialects of the ML language |
| Alice | Educational language with an integrated development environment |
| Agda | Dependently typed functional language based on intuitionistic type theory |
| Icon | High-level, general-purpose language |
| PureScript | Small strongly, statically typed language with expressive types |
| Tcl | Dynamic language based on concepts of Lisp, C, and Unix shells |
| Eiffel | Object-oriented language |