Why Objective-C is Hard

I've only learnt 2 programming languages 'thoroughly'. Pascal and Objective-C. I find Objective-C a much simpler to understand language than Java for example. I have worked in Java (although not extensively) and it just seems messy to me. Objective-C is much more human readable and better structured in my opinion.

Pretty great article. Though I wish someone could point to the paper or whatever that explains the philosophy of Objective-C having insanely verbose method and parameter names. Like, readable is one thing, but they always end up like stringFromAppendingThingToThingToNumberYieldingThingThx and it becomes unimaginable to use Objective-C without XCode to autocomplete the other 40 characters.

It's because Objective-C methods are named according to the nouns that they return rather than the verbs they perform. For example, "[input stringByAppendingThing:thing]" rather than "input.append(thing)".

Methods are actions, not objects, so the most concise description for a method is usually a verb. Describing it as a noun instead requires adding prepositions and turning verbs to the gerund '-ing' form.

I realized this because I write both Ruby and Objective-C, and sometimes write basically the same thing in idiomatic forms of both languages. In idiomatic Ruby method-chaining, your code is a series of verbs with the relations between the actions defined by the '.' or the '()' signs, rather than by words such as 'to', 'from', 'with', or 'by' present in the name of the method.

Syntactic sugar (dynamic getter and setters using @synthesize, @property, allowing for dot syntax accessors) is not new. Nor is Garbage Collection. Garbage Collection is not available on iOS, but has been for a long time on OS X [edit: and as noted below, is actually being deprecated in favor of ARC]. Objective-c 2.0 came out in 2006. Blocks, at this point, are not really new either. So, I think it's incorrect to say that Apple is 'adding' these things.

If a newcomer checked out the online documentation for contentStretch they would find:

"Defines portions of the view as being stretchable. This behavior is typically used to implement buttons and other resizable views with sophisticated layout needs where redrawing the view every time would affect performance."

There's also a lot of good arguments as to why dot syntax is often NOT what you want to do.

For instance, a someCALayer.frame will give you the frame of that layer based on its anchor point, position and bounds. However, you can't do myLayer.frame = someRect [edit: as pointed out below, you can do this -- but the results may not be what you expect].

The introduction of the 'simpler' dot syntax, in that example actually makes things harder for a new programmer.

So, I don't agree that syntax is why Objective-C is hard. Intimidating because of syntax, perhaps. But, once someone begins coding (IMHO) it can be one of the easiest languages.

My school taught Pascal in the intro to comp sci class. I found it incredibly difficult (well, maybe dull is a better word). I then self-taught myself actionScript (late 1990's). I then self-taught myself Objective-C, and I have to say it really just took a Big Nerd Ranch guide and I was off and running. It takes years to become fluent, but I really think that when someone grasps the basics of Objective-C, over time it is one of the most intuitive languages.

I don't think Objective-C is hard at all. If you understand OO or come from a OO language you can pick it up pretty fast, like in a day or two.

Cocoa on the other hand requires much more learning curve. Also apple could improve their documentation.

I'm currently working on a OSX app, and Objective-C has been a breeze, with the new ARC is even more easy to work with.