Macintosh C Programming Primer: Inside the Toolbox Using Think C

Back in the olden days, this was *the* book on learning to write Mac software. These days, with the fancy OSX, and the built-in development environment, and the other stuff and nonsense that makes it so much easier to write for the Mac, this sort of book is unnecessary.I mean, "Think C"? System 7? What do those mean, eh? I'm talking to you, sonny.This book is now only a curiosity in the modern world. A side-show in the circus of programming. If you're interested in how we wrote Mac software back in the middle ages of computing, go ahead and read this book. It's the best book on the subject it covers, for what that's worth.

This is the book that taught me GUI programming. It does not make you feel you are reading one of those "dummies" books, but shows you how the Mac thinks and how to make it do what you want. Each chapter pretty much builds on what was presented before.Once I read this book (not even entirely), I was able to read O"Reilly & Associates "XLib Programming Manual" (I always wanted to write program in X-windows) and understand it completely. If people say Petzold's book is *The* Microsoft Windows book, this, in my opinion is *The* Mac GUI book. HOWEVER, it is rather outdated: it covers System 7 and Think C 5. but then again, I have Petzold's books on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. ;)