[MUD-Dev] [TECH] [ObjC] : programming languages - Obj-C as opposed to Java

[Brian Hook]

I'm not qualified to thoroughly argue the merits of Objective-C
vs. Java -- I haven't done Java coding in about three years -- but I
can say that, subjectively speaking, Objective-C has felt more
"right" to me than any other language I've used.  The accessibility
of constructs like proxy objects, delegation and forwarding is just
wonderful.  It was designed with RPC and distributed objects in
mind.

I would suggest looking at some of the Obj-C tutorials and base your
opinions on that.  I would also highly recommend looking at Cocoa,
since in the case of Obj-C, the language is only half the equation
-- Obj-C is nice, but it's the integration with the application
frameworks that really makes it shine.  It is entirely possible that
Cocoa/Java is just as good as Cocoa/Obj-C, but I don't particularly
care for Java (I like it better than C++, but that's about it).

I'm not particularly fond of some of features that Java has
(mandatory typing, exception handling), and one of the things I
specifically like about Obj-C is that it is weakly typed.  When I
decry the integration of implementation/interface in Java, it's the
fact that there aren't separate header/source files.  Everything is
declared and implemented "in place", which means a change in
implementation can often result in a massive recompile.  At least in
C++ you can get around this somewhat using opaque pointers.  After
working on my latest code base, I am now very appreciative of
minimizing dependencies as much as possible.  Full rebuilds were
taking FOREVER until I finally ripped out STL and sat down for a
night to sort out my dependency graphs.

I'm not sure how up to date the FAQ you pointed to is -- OPENSTEP
has been gone for many years now.

Read some of the tutorials on Cocoa and Interface Builder.  IB is
what MFC's AppWizard should have been.

Some links of interest that should answer most of your questions.

  http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Cocoa/SiteInfo/NewToCocoa.html
  http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Cocoa/ObjectiveC/ObjC.pdf
  http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Cocoa/ObjCTutorial/CurrencyConverterTutorial.pdf
  http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Cocoa/CocoaTopics.html

Brian
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