Does the story really have just 15 comments or is /. just bugged? Too bad that threading of legacy stories seems borked.
Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
51–60 of 93 posts
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#52The (non)-success of GNUStep speaks volumes about how popular the ObjC library would be if it weren't for the monetary incentive provided by Apple.
I don't think it's that. Rather a) on OSX, you might as well use real Cocoa and b) on Linux, if you want to integrate with anything else, then you might as well use GNOME/KDE.
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#53Unlike most of you Hacker News readers may think, Apple devices are not common out there (yes, I know, there are iPhones - yet they're too expensive and most of their applications are NOT being coded in Obj-C), so Obj-C didn't catch on yet.
For what its worth CNBC's 'All-America Economic Survey' (http://www.cnbc.com/id/46857053) resulted in the conclusion that 51% of all homes in america have at least one Apple product.
I would say thats starting to get pretty common (of course this is probably skewed based on the demographic reading cnbc)
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've been using it for over a decade (small part of a major defense company). We do not (and have never) targeted any Apple operating systems.
Is that some strategic choice? Like, less danger of being hacked or sth?
Probably a customer requirement. You don't do something for a contract in the government, unless the government requires or asks for it specifically.
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#55Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
The way you state it is a little negative, but it's an interesting question nonetheless. I think Objective-C would not have been on many developers radar if it weren't for the fact that Apple frameworks use it extensively (they don't 'force it on you' by the way, as you can easily use C or C++ for anything except interfacing with Obj-C frameworks).
That said, Obj-C for me is very much an acquired taste. I had seen it a few times before I started developing iOS applications, and on the surface, it never appealed to me at all. The idea to use it for anything never even crossed my mind, and looking at the sad state of GNUstep usage and the many modern Obj-C features GCC doesn't implement, I'd guess it's not really popular in the FOSS scene either.
Now that I have used Objective-C for some time, it would actually be a serious option anywhere I used to automatically pick C++ before. The more you learn about Obj-C and the more you use it, the more you will like it. It basically has most of the good things of C and C++ without many of their downsides, and it adds some almost Pythonesque dynamic features that are very useful and elegant.
IMO Objective-C deserves a little more credit than 'just the language Apple uses'
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
"…and most of their applications are NOT being coded in Obj-C…" Got any sources to back that up? I've often looked for numbers for ObjC vs PhoneGap vs Titanium vs etc comparisons but I've never managed to come up with anything conclusive.
I think that sohn's point is not that PhoneGap/Titanium/etc are more popular than they really are, but that most iOS apps are really written in C/C++ with only thin shim to interface with iOS where necessary (think games portable to other platforms).
Which is, indeed, true for some games, particularly high-end games. However, the bulk of apps on iOS are not high-end games.
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#57Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
The way you state it is a little negative, but it's an interesting question nonetheless. I think Objective-C would not have been on many developers radar if it weren't for the fact that Apple frameworks use it extensively (they don't 'force it on you' by the way, as you can easily use C or C++ for anything except interfacing with Obj-C frameworks). That said, Obj-C for me is very much an acquired taste. I had seen it…
I believe Go will eat Objective-C's dessert ("general programming") in the "good things of C and [C related languages]" language category.
I would guess (but don't know the compiler) that Objective-C is a better choice than Go if you want more precise control over memory layout and specially management. But that feature is a PITA when you don't need such control and would much rather the language runtime take care of memory and GC.
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#58Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
The way you state it is a little negative, but it's an interesting question nonetheless. I think Objective-C would not have been on many developers radar if it weren't for the fact that Apple frameworks use it extensively (they don't 'force it on you' by the way, as you can easily use C or C++ for anything except interfacing with Obj-C frameworks). That said, Obj-C for me is very much an acquired taste. I had seen it…
"they don't 'force it on you' by the way, as you can easily use C or C++ for anything except interfacing with Obj-C frameworks"
Unfortunately, since most of the popularity is due to iOS applications - developers have to touch these frameworks at one point or another and that means touching at least a tiny bit of ObjC
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#59Bah, I've used Obj-C for a couple of multi-month stints just because I wanted to like it. I tried my hardest to get into the groove of it, but I just find it to be a really weak way to add objects on top of C.
Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)
#60Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
I think that Objective-C’s pros, like they way message passing can be used for UI event handling, come to life only with a framework that makes good use of the language’s strengths. People drawn to the language would be likely to stick with the framework.