I've been looking at what it would take to write
applications on Mac OSX.
To provide you with a little perspective on my
experience, I come from a Microsoft-centric, Visual
Studio background when it comes to applications
programming. I have used Java, but that was a long time
ago. I'm no stranger to the C based syntax, or object
oriented programming. It's definitely a different world
using XCode and Objective-C.
It seems that most Mac developers use Objective-C. There
might be a few peeps still programming Cocoa with C these
days, but from what I've seen, they appear to be in the
minority.
Objective-C 2.0 came out with Leopard, and makes
programming for the Mac a little less intimidating, the
biggest game-changer being garbage collection.
Objective-C, however, has a syntax that I'm still trying
to come to grips with. It's not the logic part that's
bothering me, either, since anyone who has seen PHP or
JavaScript code has seen the basics of programming C.
The funniest thing is that the things that are confusing
me are so... trivial and dumb. I just need a good
explanation of the symbols that are used. By symbols, I
mean [, *, @ and :. Out of all the great tutorials I've
seen, I haven't seen a great explanation of the use of
these symbols.
Of course, whether I actually write an app will be
dependent on how much time I have to dedicate to building
something. With so many ideas that I'd like to execute, I
guess the odds are slim to none. In any case, outside of
the syntactical dyslexia that I have, there's a lot to
like about Objective-C. I love that, unlike Java, that
there is no strict typing.
Alas, enough bitching. Time to just start playing with
the IDE.
Tags: cocoa, objective-c, syntax