Re: Learning Cocoa (OT!: Small Language Rant)
Re: Learning Cocoa (OT!: Small Language Rant)
- Subject: Re: Learning Cocoa (OT!: Small Language Rant)
- From: Brendan Younger <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 00:33:11 -0500
Forgive me for this, but I just have to chime in.
I couldn't care less whether there exists Java/Cocoa or not. Only,
please, please, please assure me that the ObjC version never goes away.
It is far too easy to learn and write in and far too powerful to toss
aside in preference to Java. For all the insults aimed at C about it
being little more than a macro processor and all the griping about ObjC
being an unknown language, it's the perfect marriage of low-level,
performance minded programming and high-level design. Yes, java is
pretty much write-once-use-lots-of-places, but so is C (show me an OS
that doesn't have a C compiler). Besides, from what I've been hearing
on this list since it began, Java is too slow and gives too much of a
crutch to the newbie programmer. (Witness the pleas for help when
someone comes across the foreign concept of "pointers." Sheesh. When a
friend of mine was in college learning programming, they taught assembly
first to make absolutely certain everyone understood what was *actually*
happening when they wrote code in higher level languages.)
As for garbage collecting, I am a devout follower of the K.I.S.S.
principle. The most effective way is often the simplest and most
direct. If you need an object, retain it, if you don't, release it. If
someone might need it, autorelease it. It's not hard, it's not
cumbersome, and it's probably the most efficient.
In short, ObjC should never, ever fade into oblivion. You all program
for the Macintosh, you know what it's like to be an endangered minority,
understand that with the advent of an all-java WebObjects 5, we ObjC
fans have started to become anxious and really don't want or need to
hear Java prosletyzing.
Brendan Younger