Re: Objective-C Question
Re: Objective-C Question
- Subject: Re: Objective-C Question
- From: Jeff Galyan <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 14:41:14 -0700
On 9/22/03 1:06 PM, "The Amazing Llama" <email@hidden> wrote:
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But you have to look at it from the other point of view, as well. Java
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is not the be-all and end-all of OOP. C++ certainly isn't. A lot of
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people use these languages, but I have heard very few people say they
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actually enjoy working with them. You hear this about ObjC all the time.
Believe it or not, I actually enjoy working with C++ and Java. Not only do
I enjoy working with them, I find them very easy to work with. I also find
ObjC to have a much simplified syntax (once you get used to the [ ]
notation), and it is easy to work with. Unfortunately, there are things
I've been trying to do with ObjC that I haven't been able to get working.
Thus, for some of my programming needs, ObjC is not the best tool.
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The real issue here is that you basically came in and asked why ObjC
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wasn't Java. You asked your question in more words than that, but what
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it boiled down to was the same. The answers you got were pretty much
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uniform: because it's not supposed to be Java and we're glad its not,
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thankyouverymuch. Java, if you didn't know, was a way for Sun to keep
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Gosling from going to work on ObjC at NeXT. He took a lot of ideas from
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ObjC, strapped on a lot of ideas from C++ which ObjC and its developers
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were pretty diametrically opposed to, and released it. This didn't sit
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so well with some of the ObjC folks, as you might imagine.
I don't want to start another avalanche of mail on this. I do have to
respond that just because the original poster used Java as an example of
things that he is looking for in ObjC, that does not necessarily mean he was
asking why ObjC isn't Java. I took his question to be more along the lines
of "do these features exist in ObjC, and if so, how do I use them? If not,
why not?" At no point did the original poster say anything even remotely
like "ObjC is stupid and so are you." Several respondents have done so
regarding Java (or C++, even).
As for Gosling and the development of the Java language, there are lots of
conflicting stories out there. His official version is in "The Java
Programming Language." To illustrate the wide variety of misinformation
regarding Java, I've even seen claims (not from Sun) that Java was so named
to increase political awareness of the plight of the Javanese (this is no
joke... It's on a GNU site somewhere) and encourage the technology industry
to lobby against the human rights abuses occurring there. According to
Gosling, Java was named Java because he and his team drank a lot of coffee
while working on it. For the full official version of how Java came about,
and why Jim Gosling was chosen to lead the project, I refer you to Sun
Microsystems, Inc.'s corporate headquarters: 1-800-555-9SUN.
With regard to Java borrowing ideas from ObjC, I'd like to point out that
ObjC borrows from Smalltalk, and likely borrows from other languages as
well. The concepts are not new, just as the concept of running code in a
virtual machine is not new or revolutionary with Java (nor is garbage
collection a new concept). Being upset about concepts being borrowed from
ObjC is not productive. Most programming languages borrow concepts from
other programming languages.
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I'm not saying that Java is a bad language. It's great for some things.
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It has real enterprise sway, and real portability, and it's great for
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that stuff. But don't think that it's the best stuff and that everyone
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should emulate it, because a lot of its "features" are in fact viewed
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as limitations when you're looking at them from the ObjC standpoint,
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where the ability to make smart decisions at runtime and act upon them
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is the holy grail. Any impediment of that-- from method privileges to
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namespaces to final methods--is viewed as an impediment to developer
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freedom, which it is, to a certain degree. The question really lies (as
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it so often does in computing and much else in the world) in where you
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want to draw the line between power and freedom.
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What you talk about in this paragraph is a low priority (or no priority at
all) for many of us. Programming freedoms do not equal personal freedoms;
you're committing the fallacy of equivocation there. That being said, I do
understand your viewpoint. I just happen to choose to exercise my personal
freedom not to share your viewpoint.
Best,
Jeff
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