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It really isn't as bad as you think. I agree with you that writing apps should be "easier", but then again Objective C is basically C and C is basically hard :)
The thing with Cocoa (and especially with Core Data) is that it really isn't that "hard" to make a beautifully looking and fully functional application. I would suggest to you to check out some Core Data tutorials on Apple's site and others... I just started using Obj-c/Cocoa/Core Data a month ago and it took a couple of days for me to prototype my app's interface and have full undo/redo as well as open/save functionality... without having to write more than a few (maybe 20-30) lines of code.
I agree that some things should be easier in Obj-C, especially for data analysis, parsing, etc... but I think the whole app design framework was made to be able to design the interface easily and have full control over the back-end code.
I guess if you are only talking about pure command line apps then I can understand your complaints... but then again, just use perl/ruby/python for that stuff.
even adobe is thinking about bringing photoshop to the web. when we will be there, there is no point to create desktop software.
@david Thanks for your comment. Despite my negative feedback, I also think that Cocoa is a great framework given its low-level nature.
I gave a try to CoreData two years ago and it was not that bad -- the lack of programming abstraction is compensated by the tools.
The command-line program was just for the matter of example, I would not used Cocoa to do that kind of job.
@heri complete online software is an holy grail and I'm still a big fan of desktop software -- especially for the Mac -- the experience is totally different from the web.
Actually, I don't think both compete, an hybrid combination would make a perfect sense, i.e. iTunes Store.
Bit Torrent on MacOSX was written in Python using Obj-C binding. I think this was a great app (and still using it on my Intel box, even if it is a PPC binary). It is probably possible to write good software with Ruby too with a bridge.
I think this is a matter of habits.
Have a look at http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html, especially "Scripting Bridge" part.
MacOSX rules
Hi Michel,
Interesting. If Apple truly support these bridges within their tools that's a very good news.
Actually, the Java bridge failed and they didn't support it anymore. I've been told it was because Java is "less dynamic" than Obj-C and that lead to troubles.
On the opposite, Python and Ruby are "more dynamic" than Obj-C, so they would be a better fit.
OS X rules, I agree :)
I found an interesting article on Ruby on Leopard at this address
http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/ruby/wiki/W....
And here is the adress of the blog of the guy that was responsible for Python and Ruby integration at Apple : http://chopine.be/lrz/diary/.</p>
To sumarize : bridges are now shipped with the OS.
Enjoy!