Re: EOF (was Re: Cocoa CGI)
Re: EOF (was Re: Cocoa CGI)
- Subject: Re: EOF (was Re: Cocoa CGI)
- From: "David W. Halliday" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 08:49:22 -0500
- Organization: Latin AmeriCom, formerly Latino Online
Annard Brouwer wrote:
>
On Monday, May 21, 2001, at 06:56 , David W. Halliday wrote:
>
> Regardless, Apple has lost a superior tool for native Cocoa
>
> development
>
> on the client and standalone sides, as well as squandering a reason for
>
> using Apple hardware on the server side.
>
>
Not only that, but Apple has taken away a competetive advantage for
>
Cocoa software developers: by forcing us to use Java the playing field
>
has been leveled for those other Java developer shops out there. (Read
>
http://paulgraham.com/paulgraham/avg.html for the competitive edge Lisp
>
gave him.) The more so because even if I use Java for desktop EOF
>
applications, why should I limit myself to a tiny market whereas my
>
competitors can run their applications on the Wintel, Linux and Sun
>
machines out there? This can make a big difference.
>
My conclusion would be: dump Cocoa and WO and jump ship to the Java
>
camp. I could still use my Mac to write Java desktop applications but I
>
would not deploy them on that platform. Too bad Apple.
>
Of course, I don't want to do this... writing Cocoa applications is much
>
more fun than Swing...
>
>
Annard
>
...
Annard, I most certainly have to agree: In /any and all/ cases where
Apple is requiring developers to use Java for their development, they cause
us, as developers, to reevaluate our targeting and API plans. Why use Cocoa
when one if forced to use Java, when Cocoa will only be usable on one
platform? Why not use the 100% pure Java APIs?
However, on a potentially brighter side (though I see it as no substitute
for Objective-C native EOF) there is some suggestion, with the Java based
WebObjects 5 release, that Apple will be providing a Cocoa like (WebObjects)
Java (2) runtime for most any Java (2) platform (being that it's written in
100% pure Java 2). To the extent this is truly leverageable/usable,
developers /may/ be able to do Cocoa development in Java, via WebObjects, and
deploy on most Java 2 platforms. (From the press release: "WebObjects
applications are designed to be deployed on the Java 2 platform, Standard
Edition 1.3 runtime environment using JDBC 2.0 for database access." [Of
course, this implies that the ability to create custom database bindings must
now be done the JDBC way.]) While this is not as powerful/easy as
Objective-C based Cocoa development, it has a, potentially, wider deployment
base, and /may/ help introduce more developers to the joys of Cocoa
development (vs. the likes of Swing, et al).
Just my thoughts (and fears, for Apple).
David email@hidden