Welcome to Project Cocoa. Here you will find resources related to Cocoa and
my FETC presentation. I hope you find this
site useful in your quest to learn about programming for all ages. You can learn
more about me, Gordon Worley, on my Web site.
What's New
7.2.2004: In an attempt to generate some interest in Cocoa and visual
programming, I've created a Cocoa
community on Orkut.
7.10.2000: Okay, it's been ages since the last update, but I haven't
had anything to update about. Well, now I do. Thanks to an e-mail from Larry
Tesler (note the spelling improvement), whose credits are previously mentioned
(see the update just below this one), I now have a new address for the Cocoa
mailing list. The one on Apple's servers died not long after the project was
canceled, and was eventually taken off. While I can understand the decision,
the archive seems to have disappeared along with the mailing list, which is really
a shame since there was a lot of useful information in there. Anyway, there's
not much activity on the new list, but you can help change that by clicking on
the new link towards the bottom of the page.
3.29.1999: I had a great time at FETC.
The session went fairly well (save the bad cough I had) and I got the chance
to meet Larry Tessler (sp?), former chief scientist at Apple who helped found
StageCast. Now that I've seen StageCast
Creator in action, I think I'll switch over to it when I buy a machine that can
handle it.
What is Cocoa?
Cocoa is a Macintosh application that allows kids as young as 8 years old to design multi-media applications. These programs can range in functionality from games, to science demonstrations, to math examples, to interactive animations. Cocoa's simple interface allows anyone to start programming with only a minimal investment in reading a few pages of documentation.
History of Cocoa
Cocoa was a project started back around 1994 under the name of KidSim by Apple.
Although an early attempt, it already had the basic workings that exist in Cocoa
today. About two years later, Apple created Cocoa as a way to distribute the
KidSim technology. The Cocoa development community grew quickly and was strongly
bound together. Then in late 1998, Apple canceled Cocoa, in part because Stagecast
felt they could not compete with Cocoa and in part because Steve Jobs cut many
programs to make Apple leaner. Although Cocoa is no longer officially sponsored
by Apple, we try to keep Cocoa and programming by example alive today.
Resources
Okay, here's the good stuff. This is where you can find Cocoa and its related documentation. Plus, various materials will be posted here from my FETC presentation as I make them Web ready. Just click on the icon next to the description of the archive or information that you are interested in. NOTE: Stuffit Expander 4.5 or higher required for downloads.
Cocoa DR3
Cocoa PPC: Get Cocoa for your PPC Macintosh.
Cocoa 68k: Cocoa is also available for older 68k machines.
Documentation
Cocoa Basics Tutorial: Gets you started programming in Cocoa.
Advanced Examples: Where to go after mastering the basics. Commented code.
Some more examples of what Cocoa is capable of can be found on my Web site.
Presentation Materials
Outline: Outline for
my presentation. I try to follow it.
Handout: PDF file. Contains some short links and a quick description.
Presentation: You get to look at this while I talk.
All this stuff is here for you to use in your own presentations or discussions about Cocoa. Just remember, I created it, so be sure to mention me when passing around handouts or viewing the presentation. This keeps me happy and gives me creadit for all my hard work.
Where to Go from Here
Now that Cocoa is no longer supported by Apple, it is up to us to keep it alive.
One obvious way is simply to use it and inform others about its unique abilities.
Sharing information is also vital, so if you have a crazy Cocoa Web site of your
own, please list it on ODP. Also, there is
a mailing
list to allow Cocoa users to communicate with each other.
Related Links
These are some other sites out there that are related to Cocoa or are products similar to it. If anyone has their own Cocoa web site, please tell me about it. Enjoy!
