Re: WWDC2k5 and ROI

FROM : Scott Ribe
DATE : Wed Apr 13 22:05:33 2005

> What
> makes it technically attractive for desktop apps (Appkit, CoreData)?


That is a *hard* question to answer. The whole is truly greater than the sum
of the parts. Take my own experience:

- I don't like single-inheritance OOP languages.

- I don't like manual reference-counting schemes.

- I really like what you can do with C++ templates these days. I like
higher-level languages, Dylan especially, the Common Lisp family as well.

So in theory, I should see Objective-C as a feature-impoverished and
annoying language. Yet the actual *experience* of developing with Cocoa and
Objective-C is, so far, very pleasant and highly productive. The whole thing
involves a few carefully-chosen, general-purpose, simple-to-use additions to
C, and a few design choices that are elegant solutions to common problems,
all used effectively and consistently throughout.

Just one example, if you've ever used a pre-Boost, pre-Loki C++
implementation of manual reference counting, you know what I'm talking about
when I say those are a pain. If you're used to C++, you are loathe to use a
language that doesn't offer stack-allocated objects with destructors that
are automatically called when objects go out of scope. Yet in Cocoa, the use
of autorelease pools and the provision of many many class methods that
return autoreleased temporaries makes the pain go away.

I keep thinking of writing a paper on these observations, but I'm afraid
that by the date I can find time to do this, I will have lost the outsider's
perspective and will no longer be able to present it well...


--
Scott Ribe
<email_removed>
http://www.killerbytes.com/
(303) 665-7007 voice