[GRLUG] Objective-C [Was: iPad]

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Thu, 2010-01-28 at 17:43 -0500, Michael Mol wrote:
> On 1/28/2010 5:36 PM, Ben DeMott wrote:
> > Objective C - You know for those times when writing C made too much
> > sense, so you had to put a language inbetween it, convert from that
> > language to C, then compile the converted code using GCC.
> > Hot Pockets .... (And yes that was a Jim Gaffigan reference)
> Objective C is, more or less, a more dynamic C++. Several of the 
> features Objective C grants are reimplemented in the Qt widget system. 
> It also has similarities to Perl, PHP and Python, when you consider its 
> object behavior.

Objective-C is, to me anyway, much nicer than C++;  but the big-deal
with Objective-C wasn't so much the language [dialect?] it was the
awesome [and commonly implemented] range of services provided by
Foundation (the core, common, libraries).  Everyone has String/NSString
rather than the string mess that existed in C++;  and there were
'common' libraries for database access (GDL), even precursors to LINQ
[LINQ RULEZ!!!] in EOFilter.  Really good stuff.  NeXTStep / OpenSTEP
was enormously advanced for its time.  Not until .NET have I found as
broad a range of well-implemented, common [vs. grabbed from all over and
plugged in], and *well-documented* services.

And, yep, Python has almost eerie similarities to Objective-C.  Python
also has very a high-quality module system, but the documentation can be
pretty spartan.  SQLalchemy is a very nice replacement for GDL.  On a
couple occasions I've cut-n-pasted GDL code from Objective-C into
Monodevelop (in Python) and done a large part of the conversion with
search-and-replace.

I wouldn't compare anything to PHP, ugh.  Except maybe GW-Basic.  It
could never be anything other than an insult, despite whatever technical
similarities.

And I hear the tool chain on Apple is pretty nice [I don't really care].
But the truth today is that GNUstep / Objective-C / etc.... are relics.
The different implementations of Objective-C - and most importantly
Foundation and its cohorts - are not trivially portable.   What Apple
has, effectively, in their Objective-C / Cocoa / X-Code is just yet
another proprietary development platform.

Go to the GNUstep documentation, pick anywhere, maybe
<http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/Developer/EOControl/EOGenericRecord.html>,  and count the "Description forthcoming".  It has been that way for years?  Running toward a decade I'd guess.  The Apple documentation [for example: <http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSArray_Class/NSArray.html>] is really good [essentially a forward version of the NeXT/Open documentation].  But it is only a rough guide as to what will work on a given version or edition of GNU Objective-C.

So I see similarities to Perl too.... in CPAN <shudder/>.