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Why Objective-C is Hard

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Re: Why Objective-C is Hard

#151

Post by jinushaun »

The only item I agree with is the last item: Objective-C is a nebulous term because it's so intrinsically tied to Apple and Cocoa/UIKit. The syntax? You pick it up within a week. Message passing versus method invocation? An important, but subtle distinction.

So what makes Obj-C hard? For me, it was Apple's gigantic MVC-style framework. Rewiring my brain to grok Obj-C was nothing compared to grokking Foundation Kit, UIKit and AppKit. Growing up with C++, C# and Java, you get used to a particular way of doing thing. APIs are designed and interacted with in a certain way. Apple's API feel completely different. From building strings and making network connections to working with images and animations. Apple's version just feels different.

Re: Why Objective-C is Hard

#152

Post by hboon »

Objective C isn't hard. Ruby isn't hard.

Building a great app is hard. Building and running a great service is hard. Building and running a great company is hard.

Most commonly used programming languages aren't hard.

Re: Why Objective-C is Hard

#153

Post by glaurent »

cageface wrote: post #126
glaurent wrote: post #80

I know Objective C, C++, Java and have basic knowledge of C#. Of all these I'd rate Objective C as the easiest to learn and to handle. It's much more forgiving and easy on the programmer, and the syntax is trivial. You seem to make a big case of the message passing syntax, but your example is very poorly chosen. Rather than 'performAction:withTwoParameters:' it should be 'performActionWithFirstParameter:andWithSecond…

The C++ standard library is actually quite small. Check Herb Sutter's keynote at Going Native 2012 for an entertaining visualization of its size compared to the Java or C# standard libraries: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/GoingNative/GoingNative-2012...

Compared to the Java and C# libs, yes, the C++ std lib is small. In terms of complexity and ease of use, it's a different picture.

Re: Why Objective-C is Hard

#154

Post by xiaoma »

Is MacRuby truly abandoned? If so, then I'm saddened. I just started experimenting with it recently and found it to be the answer to everything that frustrated me about obj c.

Re: Why Objective-C is Hard

#155

Post by emp »

scott_s wrote: post #76
donmcc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, "verbose" isn't really the correct term, "explicit" better describes Objective-C. Here's an example where I think Objective-C's explicitness is helpful. The Windows API CreateWindow() function call in C: HWND hwnd = CreateWindow("MainWClass", "Sample", WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW, CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, (HWND) NULL, (HMENU) NULL, hinstance, (LPVOID) NULL); And here's a long method c…

I agree the second example is more understandable, but I think most of that benefit comes from named parameters (a language feature), not the naming convention itself. That is, were the naming up to me, I would prefer: NSString *filtered = [unfiltered replace:@"verbose" with:@"explicit" options:CaseInsensitive range:Range(0, [unfiltered length])]; Of course, I'm making assumptions about what those parameters mean. Bu…

In Objective-C, those aren't named parameters, like you might find in Python, or faked in Ruby or Groovy. They are called 'Keyword Messages'. In your example above, the method signature is replace:with:options:range:, compared to say a C++ style replaceWithOptionsRange. It's simply a way to interleave arguments in the message send itself, inherited from Smalltalk.

Re: Why Objective-C is Hard

#156

Post by cageface »

glaurent wrote: post #153
cageface wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The C++ standard library is actually quite small. Check Herb Sutter's keynote at Going Native 2012 for an entertaining visualization of its size compared to the Java or C# standard libraries: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/GoingNative/GoingNative-2012...

Compared to the Java and C# libs, yes, the C++ std lib is small. In terms of complexity and ease of use, it's a different picture.

The IO libraries are kind of a mess but I don't find the algorithms and containers significantly more difficult to use than similar implementations in other languages.
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