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Re: What Should I learn Before Cocoa?

On Thursday, September 4, 2003, at 01:37 PM, Thomas McQuitty wrote:

However, I still look at some of the code in Objective-C and compare it to C++ and wonder why the function calls in Objective C are so dang long. I don't know of another language where you specify the function's variable along with the passing variable.. :)

SmallTalk (I'm told) does this and Obj-C's syntax was inspired by SmallTalk. Actually, when I first hit on Obj-C after years of C++, it looked weird. But after a bit of time, it started to make sense. An Obj-C function may be long, but it's saying allot. Reading Obj-C code has ended up being easier for me once I understood that the function call is telling you exactly what it needs and, most likely, what it does.

That, and I think PB could be updated to ease the transition, like function completion on objects and doing other automated functions that modern IDE include.. I haven't seen XCode, so I can't comment, however I think some things have been addressed in XCode... or at least I hope so... can't wait to download it..

Auto-completion feature in Project Builder has been begged for here and elsewhere of Apple for as long as I can remember. Really frustrating that we still don't have it. I mean, come on Apple, it's not like Cocoa is that new that building in auto-completion into PB would be hard. Not having this feature makes PB almost embarrassingly inadequate.


Jim Hillhouse


Thomas
On Thursday, September 4, 2003, at 10:49 AM, Mitch Chapman wrote:

On Thursday, September 4, 2003, at 09:20 AM, Thomas McQuitty wrote:
What I really need is a conversion manual from Dev Studio to Project Builder/Interface Builder.

I understand the MVC philosophy, however, I am still a little slow in the learning how to implement it with PB/IB (Outlets and Actions) rather than a more connected method of development (DevStudio). Then again, it could just be that I have spent so much time in the MFC environment, much of it comes naturally now.. Who knows....

I come from a background of DevStudio, Borland Delphi, and pygtk/libglade.
I haven't had so much trouble with PB/IB per se, but it has taken 10 months
(granted, on my own time) to begin feeling comfortable with Cocoa.

You said it very well: I understand MVC, but am slow in figuring out
how familiar patterns are implemented in Cocoa. Maybe part of the
problem is that Cocoa offers more "recommended" ways of connecting software
entities to each other, and it's hard to figure out when each technique
is appropriate.

For example, years ago I implemented Callback and Observer components
in Python. The interfaces were simple, and the range of uses broad.

Cocoa provides several mechanisms -- the target/action paradigm,
NSNotificationCenter, informal delegate protocols which define "custom
adapters" for some types of notification -- to cover the same situations.
The interfaces for these mechanisms are comparatively "thick"; there's
more stuff to call. So it has been difficult to figure out which
mechanisms to use in which circumstances.

Anyway, to get back (or at least closer) to the thread, I'm _finally_
becoming comfortable enough with Cocoa to find "Cocoa Programming"
(Anguish, Buck, Yacktman) both understandable and interesting.
So after you've read some of the books on Objective-C and something
like "Building Cocoa Applications with Objective-C", you might want
to pick up a copy of "Cocoa Programming".

--
Mitch
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References: 
 >Re: What Should I learn Before Cocoa? (From: Thomas McQuitty <email@hidden>)



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