Before we start to develop our first Mac OS X program, we need to locate the tools needed to create programs. There are several different choices for software development on Mac OS X and the tools that we will select depend on the programming environment that we want to use. Because we want to write our programs using the native Objective-C programming language and the Cocoa frameworks we are going to use Apple's free Integrated Development Environment (IDE), called Xcode.
The code in this book has been developed and tested with Xcode 4.3.
Tip
Cocoa frameworks
The Cocoa frameworks consist of libraries, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and runtimes that form the development layer for all of Mac OS X. By developing with Cocoa, we will be creating applications the same way Mac OS X itself is created. Our application will automatically inherit the behavior and appearances of Mac OS X. Using Cocoa with Xcode IDE is the best way to create native Mac applications.