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Re: Apple should get behind Cocoa Java

On 18/08/2006, at 7:34 AM, Shawn Erickson wrote:

On 8/17/06, Fabrizio Giudici <email@hidden> wrote:

I have a more objective argument against Objective-C (no pun
intended): Java (or C++) are in the top ten languages used in the
world, Objective-C is way below in the list. The point of using a
language is not only related to the learning curve, but to the
company procedures and in the end to the ROI - if my company is not
focused exclusively on Mac OS X I find that learning a niche language
such Objective-C, be it good or bad, is a waste of time/money. The
choice of not supporting other languages, such as Java, makes it
harder to write first-class applications for Mac OS X if you need
some tight integration with the operating system.


Again I will point out if you want tight integration with the
operating system you are targeting you have to learn the frameworks of
that target operating system (J2SE isn't going to cut it) ... learning
those if far more work then learning a simple language like
Objective-C. Also IMHO you want engineers that understand a diverse
set of programming languages, it leads to a better engineer because of
having additional perspectives on how to attack a problem space
(different languages often lead to different approaches to the same
problem).

I agree completely. Alas, most companies these days don't want to spend the money on training. Although it's not just now, I remember the resitance to teaching COBOL programmers ALGOL, but at least that was in the days when programmers did get on-the-job training.

I also think that while the basics of Objective-C syntax may be masterable in a few days, it is always the whole way you use a language that takes at least six months to become comfortable with. For example moving from garbage collected Java to Objective-C's reference counting and expecting programmers to not have dangling pointers or memory leaks.

After knowing Java for nearly 10 years and using it full time for 2 years, I'm still learning things about it, and it's reasonably simple compared to Objective-C (and don't even mention C++.... oh I just did ;-)). It really all comes down to a $ value of how much will this really cost.


Speaking from experience I have found that an Java engineer (weak in C
even) can read Objective-C in a matter of hours and grasp its
fundamentals in days... seen 3 different engineers do this. It really
is a none issue in the end.

-Shawn

Note Java has been my primary language for several years (until I
changed jobs this year) and it is the one I still prefer for large
projects developed by large distributed teams (Java's ability to
rigorously define API is win)... but of course I did learn Pascal & C
first followed by Objective-C (NeXT) and C++ while still in college so
I am fully comfortable with Objective-C++ (my primary language for Mac
OS X development) and of course Cocoa.
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References: 
 >Apple should get behind Cocoa Java (From: Vince Marco <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Apple should get behind Cocoa Java (From: Ian Joyner <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Re: Apple should get behind Cocoa Java (From: "Shawn Erickson" <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Apple should get behind Cocoa Java (From: Elliotte Harold <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Apple should get behind Cocoa Java (From: Shawn Erickson <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Apple should get behind Cocoa Java (From: Fabrizio Giudici <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Re: Apple should get behind Cocoa Java (From: "Shawn Erickson" <email@hidden>)



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