Re: Cocoa Developer in Training: Language Question (ObjC or Java)?
Re: Cocoa Developer in Training: Language Question (ObjC or Java)?
- Subject: Re: Cocoa Developer in Training: Language Question (ObjC or Java)?
- From: Bradley Ford <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 12:31:22 -0500
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My question: If you were starting out, would you start out
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with Java or Objective C for developing Cocoa apps?
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I know this is a newbie question and appreciate your thoughts.
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Thank you very much,
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Reno
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Cocoa developer in trainging
Java is an incredibly useful language with a fantastically wide user base.
A lot of colleges are now starting their intro to programming (Computer
Science 101) classes with students learning Java, whereas they used to get
Pascal, etc. I personally _love_ programming in Java. It's probably my
favorite environment. Very clean syntax and a high level of abstraction to
hide a lot of the nitty gritty that gives programmers so many fits.
Having said that, I think Apple introduced it as an alternative to
Objective-C simply to get more people to give it a try. Cocoa has a "java
bridge", meaning that its not vanilla-looking Java, and it's frankly a
little awkward. You don't get the automatic garbage collection. I think
you'd be better off learning Objective C. It's very similar to Java in a
lot of ways, and anyone comfortable with OO programming practice should be
able to learn it quickly. For me the only getting used to was the concept
of retaining/copying and releasing/autoreleasing. I think when you read any
Cocoa book available right now, you'll find that the majority of the samples
(or all the samples) will be written in Objective-C, you'll get so used to
reading Objective-C that you'll invariably learn it.
Brad Ford