Meetings

Core Data: Easy & Fast Data Persistence on Mac OS X

Jonathan 'Wolf' Rentzsch

Tuesday January 24th 2006 at 7:00pm
Wheaton, Illinois Institute of Technology - Rice Campus, Room 103

Abstract

Introduced in Mac OS X "Tiger" 10.4, Core Data is Apple's new object persistence framework. If you're still manually reading and writing custom data structures to disk, you're simply working too hard.

Core Data follows the object-relational design pattern, and sports visual definition of data models using Apple's free IDE: Xcode 2. It supports a number of file formats: proprietary binary, textual XML and SQLite. Core Data is worth using even if you have a custom file format, as it manages your in-memory object graph for you, complete with niceties like automatic undo.

Together we'll build a Core Data application from scratch, illustrating defining a new data model, creating objects in memory, hooking them up to a user interface, writing them to disk, and reading them back. I'll also compare and contrast Core Data to Apple's other object-relational persistence framework: Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF).

Speaker Bio

Jonathan 'Wolf' Rentzsch (http://rentzsch.com) is an independent Mac and web software contractor. He runs Red Shed Software (http://redshed.net), a software boutique out of Schaumburg.

Getting to the meeting

The next General meeting of UniForum Chicago will be:

        IIT Rice Campus
        Room 103
        201 East Loop Road
        Wheaton, IL 60187-8489

Directions to IIT - Rice Campus in Wheaton
The 19-acre campus is located just northeast of the intersection of Naperville and Butterfield roads in sou th Wheaton's Danada development. The campus is three miles west of the Butterfield Road interchange of the N orth-South Tollway (I-355) and two miles north of the Naperville Road interchange of the East-West Tollway ( I-88).

From the North or South: From I-355 (North-South Tollway), exit westbound at Rt.56/Butterfield Road and proceed west 3 1/2 miles on B utterfield Road to East Loop Road. Turn right onto East Loop Road (Phillip's 66 Gas Station on the corner); the campus will be on your right about a block north of Butterfield Road, behind Cozymel's. Park in the Student parking lot behind the building. Room 103 is the first room inside the north enterance.

From the I-294 (Tri-State Tollway), take the I-88 (East-West Tollway) westbound and follow directions "From the East or West" below.

From the East or West: From I-88 (East-West Tollway), take the Naperville Road exit. At the traffic light, turn left onto Naperville Road and continue north for 1\275 miles to Rt. 56/Butterfield Road. Turn right onto Rt. 56/Butterfield Road and proceed 1/4 mile to the first traffic light (East Loop Road). Turn left on to East Loop Road, ( Phillip's 66 Gas station on the corner); the campus will be on your right about a block north of Butterfield Road, behind Cozymel's. Park in the Student parking lot behind the building.

Room 103 is the first room inside the north enterance.

Contact Scott Nemec at (630) 990-6265 or president@uniforum.chi.il.us for additional information.