The ULTIMATE Cocoa Development Language
The ULTIMATE Cocoa Development Language
- Subject: The ULTIMATE Cocoa Development Language
- From: Steve Schacht <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 16:19:52 -0700
Hi, I'm relatively new to the list. I hope you don't mind if I jump right
in and share some thoughts on Cocoa (and OOP programming in general).
IMHO, the ultimate Cocoa programming language/environment doesn't exist yet.
Why? Because Cocoa deserves - no, it's SCREAMING for - a truly VISUAL
programming language. I'm not talking about just visual interface design;
I'm talking about visual _programming_. I'm talking about a language like,
well... Has anyone ever used Prograph (formerly known as Prograph CPX) by
Pictorius (formerly known as Prograph International which started out as TGS
Systems)?
Prograph is a full blown graphical, object oriented, and data flow LANGUAGE
as well as an IDE. It is, in my opinion, the most awesome software
development environment ever to be created. It still blows my mind how far
ahead of its time it was (and still is, I guess). Mind you, this is an
actual graphical language. You create what amounts to a data flow diagram
which then gets compiled. There's no textual syntax at all. The diagram IS
the code. You could then run and debug the app, changing values and program
flow on the fly. This is _not_ some special purpose visual engineering
"language" like LabView or some such. This is a general purpose programming
language which even allows you to drop down to the Mac Toolbox level if
necessary (or the Windows API on that platform). Prograph is to programming
languages what the Macintosh is to personal computers (especially when the
Mac first emerged with its graphical interface while almost everyone else
was working from a command line).
Anyway, it seems to me that a language like Prograph would be an ideal
development tool for Cocoa. It was such a pleasure to program using
Prograph. You actually designed the program and wrote the code at the same
time! It really allowed me to focus on designs and solutions without
getting bogged down in syntax. It's wonderful how liberating it felt to
program in Prograph.
If you've never tried it, you can't imagine what you're missing. I still
can't understand why such a language isn't prevalent today. There's no doubt
in my mind that's what future languages will be like. Unfortunately, it
seems the whole software development industry is still entrenched in text
languages. I just don't understand why. Could it be that programmers really
enjoy wrestling with syntax and pokin' and peckin' at a keyboard that much?
I sure don't. :-/
Anyone else familiar with Prograph? Care to share some thoughts?
---
Steve Schacht
email@hidden