Feedback on Big Nerd Ranch - Cocoa I Bootcamp - Kloster Eberbach - Germany

My Motive for Learning Cocoa

My first thoughts regarding doing a Cocoa class were some months ago while drafting out the strategy for my next project. Having quite a diverse knowledge background, it became clear to me that getting a comprehensive knowledge of the language and tools to create an OS X application would be key. Where would I get this?

Why Big Nerd Ranch?

After reading several reviews on the Amazon website, I identified Aaron Hillegass as the author of successful book on Cocoa Programming ("Cocoa Programming for the Mac"). Further research linked him to the Big Nerd Ranch website.

Now Which Course?

Big Nerd Ranch offer several courses on various technologies in North America and Europe. Being based in the United Kingdom, the natural choice for me was a course based in Europe. The Cocoa I Bootcamp course appeared ideal for me.

Arranging the Course

While I could have conducted the booking of this via email, I decided to call the European Office of Big Nerd Ranch first to pose some questions and verify that it was indeed. Funding for the course would come from myselfself so it was critical that I be as careful as possible to make sure that the course would be worth while. My phone call was answered by Stefanie Hofling, who runs the European office of Big Nerd Ranch. All my questions were answered competently by her. I booked a place :)

Arriving in Frankfurt

Following a good flight to Frankfurt International Airport,I met some of the students and was then whisked away to Kloster Eberbach by the shuttle bus arranged by Big Nerd Ranch.

Arrival At Kloster Eberbach

I was immediately surprised with how quiet, impressive and interesting the location of the course was. Kloster Eberbach is a monastary and maintained in an ideal way for such a course (clean, quiet, modern facilities, no distractions). My room was comfortable and closely located to the areas I would need to access during my stay.

The Other Participants at the Bootcamp

Over the next few days I got know more about the other people at the bootcamp. The ages and backgrounds of the participants varied widely. Everyone was interesting and friendly. During the course I found that everyone asked questions and the answers that were provided were benefical to all.

The Instructor

Below you will find a short bio of Scott Richie, our instructor, that was emailed to us:

"Cocoa and iPhone Instructor Scott Ritchie has been developing with and teaching about Objective-C since he joined NeXT Computer in 1990. Prior to that time he was an engineer at Sun Microsystems working on window systems. Since 2000 he has held several training and engineering positions with Apple, most recently working with both AppKit and UIKit development.

Scott received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was introduced to Smalltalk-80. He hasn't wanted to work with a computer language that wasn't also an "environment" since. He went on to earn a Masters in Computer Science from UC Berkeley where he focused on the design of RISC-based multiprocessor architectures."

Scott, in my opinion, is one of the best instructors that I have ever met. Not only did he have a comprehensive knowledge of the material, but he was able to teach Cocoa to us in a clear, concise and friendly manner. He managed to cover a vast range of material during the days we were there with adequate time for questions too. He also made multiple relevant cross references to other areas of Cocoa programming (e.g iPhone).

The Course

During the course we managed to learn:

How to write complex applications for Mac OS X
How to Be fluent in Objective-C
Have mastery of Interface Builder and Xcode
Be able to find and understand the online documentation
Have experience with the most common classes in the frameworks
Have a clear understanding of the design patterns used in Cocoa
Be able to recognize several common idioms of the Cocoa community

This was obtained by learning theory and then practicing completing planned programming tasks on Apple OS X computers.

Conclusion

The course at was exactly what I hoped for and fulfilled expectations. Firstly I can see that the Big Nerd Ranch organizers have thought hard about and created the ideal learning environment. This, coupled with arranging teaching from some of the best instructors from industry leads to the complete Big Nerd Ranch success formula.

Thank you Big Nerd Ranch.