Where can I go for hands-on cocoa training besides WWDC?

Question

I'm banging my head up against Cocoa and Xcode, and have been for months. I never seem to be able to get away from the tutorials, which are often incomplete, or Apple developer documentation, which is sparse on samples. I've watched videos, downloaded source code and asked developers for help. I still feel like I haven't gotten that audible "click" when something falls into place. Maybe I'm too old to learn something new, but I feel pretty productive in .Net!

Are there in-person training programs offered for Cocoa programming? Are there any resources I'm missing? User groups I don't know about?

I'm in Dallas, TX, but would be willing to fly anywhere in the US to get some real training!

EDIT 1:

The biggest problem I'm having is in the bindings between Interface Builder and XCode. I don't want to lose the productivity benefits of IB, but am stuck following step-by-step instructions to use a GUI tool. The nomenclature ("File's Owner", "Reference Outlet") is alien to me and I'd love someone who could literally sit down with me and explain step-by-step what I'm doing and why. I feel like I'm constantly cargo-culting and in between every time I sit down at my Mac I leak back out everything I've learned.

Answer 1

Big Nerd Ranch.

Big Nerd Ranch offers intensive, head-down computer programming courses taught by experts in a retreat environment. Classroom, accommodations, and dining all take place within the same building, freeing you to learn, code, and discuss with your programming peers and instructors. At Big Nerd Ranch, we take care of the details; your only job is to learn.

It's pricey, but worth it.

Answer 2

Another option is to follow along with the new Stanford iPhone class:

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2009/pr-apple-040109.html

It may help to edit your question to describe what seems to be the biggest roadblock - Objectve-C? Cocoa? IB? XCode itself?

Answer 3

The biggest problem I'm having is in the bindings between Interface Builder and XCode. I don't want to lose the productivity benefits of IB, but am stuck following step-by-step instructions to use a GUI tool

I think you should ask your self if, right now, for you, IB is a productivity gain. I found that leaving IB well alone, and making UI's in code allowed me to learn much more about UIKit and how it worked. Then when I tried IB again, it was much clearer.

I would also recommend going to WWDC where you can speak to Apple engineers or lots of peer UIKit programmers.

With respect to your question about File's Owner it is a placeholder within the NIB for an object that exists in your app (i.e. not in the NIB) but which you pass in when you load the NIB. It's just "another object". You set it using the second parameter of NSBundle's loadNibNamed:owner:options:.

Answer 4

Aaron Hillegass, who runs Big Nerd Ranch, has a book called 'Cocoa Programming for Mac OSX,' now in its third edition, that covers everything you describe in a more hand-holdy way than the Apple documentation.