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Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

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Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#81

Post by zerostar07 »

Argorak wrote: post #62
zerostar07 wrote: post #30

The (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 think the non-success of GNUStep is rooted in another problem: it is a beast to get running. I tried to get a GNUStep toolchain on my Mac when I started ObjC. No dice. Its really _hard_ to start. If GNUStep was as easy to start with like, say, QT, it would be much better.

You can look at that from another angle: Nobody cared enough to make decent tools for GNUStep, while many care about other languages (c, c++, java, python, ruby etc). Linux programmers are keen to copy UI effects from Apple, but so far they seem to keep away from its programming language

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#82

Post by w0utert »

canthonytucci wrote: post #80
Tichy wrote: post #8

Is 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?

> Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? I would say No and No. I'm in agreement with John Siracusa on this one, even with ARC Apple can't hang on to Objective-C forever. John Siracusa's piece: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/copland-2010-revis...

I fail to see how the article you link to supports your opinion in any way, and neither you or Siracusa offer any arguments why Objective-C needs replacing. At all.

You can summarize Siracusa's piece as 'Objective-C needs automatic memory management, it needs automatic memory management, and all the other popular languages have automatic memory management, so yeah, Objective-C needs automatic memory management'. He then rejects the fact that Objective-C on OS X has had garbage collection for years because 'it is not a no-brainer because not every developer uses it' and because iOS doesn't support it. Guess what, ARC is now the default way of 'managing' memory on iOS and OS X, and it has some very clear advantages over garbage collection. I wrote 'managing' with quotes, because with ARC you don't actually have to do anything as a developer, and if you don't pay attention to anything it is just like writing code in a language that has GC.

So unless you have some actual arguments why Objective-C needs replacing or what important features it is missing that other languages do have, it is very hard to take your 'No and No' very serious.

Just out of curiosity: did you actually ever develop anything non-trivial with Objective-C, and if so, what part of that experience makes you think it people would not use it voluntarily?

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#83

Post by 286c8cb04bda »

MasterNayru wrote: post #42
Tichy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that I strongly wish I could do iOS development that way, but I suspect it is not really practical yet :-(

I'm just looking at the slew of cross-platform games (eg. the GTA series) that have recently been put on the iDevices and thinking "They wouldn't have rewritten those from scratch, would they?".

> They wouldn't have rewritten those from scratch, would they?

I do a lot of cross-platform integration. This is based on my experience. If you know you're going to cover multiple platforms from the beginning, you will do a lot of things to make that a lot easier.

Most of those would be written to target a graphics framework (like OpenGL) for the visual elements. Then, for each platform there will be a host that OS-specific things like file & network access. You can also use libraries to abstract that for you.

So the amount that needs to be rewritten depends on how similar the new platform is to the old ones. Going from PC to iOS would be about 40%. Going to Nintendo Wii, maybe 70%.

Unless the platform is particularly unusual, most of the hard problems were solved in the first release, adding additional platforms is fairly mechanical. So even if you need to replace >50% of the code, you know roughly how you're going to do it before you start.

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#84

Post by SeanLuke »

rahoulb wrote: post #40
reidrac wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered if that popularity is tied to Apple devices. I mean... are there projects using Obj-C out of an Apple context? Other sources: http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/ https://github.com/languages

My friend worked for a big bank for nearly ten years in Obj-C (using NeXTStep and OpenStep) - and quit when they moved to Java a couple of years ago.

That would have to be Credit Suisse.

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#85

Post by kstenerud »

eternalban wrote: post #57
w0utert wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Objective-C supports GC. You can choose to use it or not in OS X. In iOS, there's ARC.

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#86

Post by kstenerud »

w0utert wrote: post #82
canthonytucci wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? I would say No and No. I'm in agreement with John Siracusa on this one, even with ARC Apple can't hang on to Objective-C forever. John Siracusa's piece: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/copland-2010-revis...

I fail to see how the article you link to supports your opinion in any way, and neither you or Siracusa offer any arguments why Objective-C needs replacing. At all. You can summarize Siracusa's piece as 'Objective-C needs automatic memory management, it needs automatic memory management, and all the other popular languages have automatic memory management, so yeah, Objective-C needs automatic memory management'. He t…

"with ARC you don't actually have to do anything as a developer"

* With the caveat: if you're using blocks, you need to be careful about unintentional circular retains, and sometimes take extra steps to avoid them.

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#87

Post by rahoulb »

SeanLuke wrote: post #84
rahoulb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend worked for a big bank for nearly ten years in Obj-C (using NeXTStep and OpenStep) - and quit when they moved to Java a couple of years ago.

That would have to be Credit Suisse.

Yup ;-)

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#88

Post by Argorak »

zerostar07 wrote: post #81
Argorak wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the non-success of GNUStep is rooted in another problem: it is a beast to get running. I tried to get a GNUStep toolchain on my Mac when I started ObjC. No dice. Its really _hard_ to start. If GNUStep was as easy to start with like, say, QT, it would be much better.

You can look at that from another angle: Nobody cared enough to make decent tools for GNUStep, while many care about other languages (c, c++, java, python, ruby etc). Linux programmers are keen to copy UI effects from Apple, but so far they seem to keep away from its programming language

Considering the work that ran into GNUStep, its window management, the libraries, etc., I think its the typical programmers oversight: it runs for me, why should I care to run it elsewhere?

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#89

Post by pooriaazimi »

canthonytucci wrote: post #80
Tichy wrote: post #8

Is 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?

> Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? I would say No and No. I'm in agreement with John Siracusa on this one, even with ARC Apple can't hang on to Objective-C forever. John Siracusa's piece: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/copland-2010-revis...

I was very shocked when I heard old Siracusa bashing ObjC in his rant about the dreadful HFS+ last month (in his terrific podcast, Hypercritical). I didn't know why he didn't like ObjC (I really like it), and I still don't understand why exactly. I've written iOS/Mac apps and am familiar with it. I don't think his critiques are on spot this time.

Re: Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000)

#90

Post by [deleted] »

mattmanser wrote: post #15
rbarooah wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make the same argument for other languages - I've never used Java out of preference, but have written 100,000s of lines of it because it was what was required to get the job done in the context. I still think it's popular.

Could you? Because there's the Mono project for .Net for example. Which seems pretty popular. Where's the ObjC equivalent?

[deleted]
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