Now is the time to learn Obj-C!

[Gan]

Any of you guys seen the Mac OS Lion keynote?
Looked pretty awesome.

They are planning on releasing a Mac App Store. I bet there will be a gold rush just like with the original app store.
I'm going to be jumping on that wagon, it's quite a bit easier to make a mac game. I think the chance of making nice money is quite high.

So why Obj-C to get on the app store? If the Mac App Store is similarly set up like the iPhone App Store then there are going to be bundle IDs and such that Obj-C compiles into your app.

So I propose that any who want to learn post here. I'll do my best to teach.
I secondly propose that Sc should ready itself for the inevitable. For (A) To make apps that can get up on the Mac App Store and (B) Get itself up on the Mac App Store.
I'm pretty sure if Sc were to be coded in Obj-C that not only would it be tons faster but getting it on the Mac App Store would make it's popularity sky rocket.



-Gan

[Gnome]

Oh my god yes.

Indie Development is about to get a huge gain.

[WarHampster]

I hatehatehate Objective C. Really... this isn't just my rebellion complex speaking here, I think it's syntactically ugly and confusing as hell.

[Gnome]

Just a thought, does it have to be Obj-C? I mean the iphone app store opened for some other languages, I don't see why this one can't.

[GMG Mike]

Fuck Objective-C.

Fuck it to hell.

What a fucking pile of shit. Over one hour and I can't make a fucking app that shows a fucking hello world messagebox.

FUCK Objective-C and FUCK Xcode.

[Telstar5]

I agree with Mike on this one.

Objective C is too much to deal with. RB is simple and cross platform. Tick a box for Windows and you're reaching a wider audience (although it's generally better to design the interfaces separately, at least that's what I learned after MemoNet which bombed because it looked and acted like a PC application).

[Gan]

Just a thought, does it have to be Obj-C? I mean the iphone app store opened for some other languages, I don't see why this one can't.

The app stores are native to Obj-C, that is Apple's main language.
The other tools have figured ways to compile apps with IDs and provisioning profiles to look like Obj-C native apps. Those other tools just need to be made to support Mac as they do iPhone and bingo.

I hatehatehate Objective C. Really... this isn't just my rebellion complex speaking here, I think it's syntactically ugly and confusing as hell.

That's so strange. You're repulsed by it and I find it beautiful and elegant. To me it is so much easier than any other language I've ever used. Even better than Sc, Java, Vb.net, and Haskell.

Going down memory lane I realize I tried learning Obj-C right after I learned Sc. No dice. Tried learning after Tnt, no go. Then after Vb.net, no success. It wasn't till I did Java that I was able to grasp at something other than straws. How I learned Obj-C was by going for the iPhone first. It's 10x easier to learn by iPhone than by Mac. Everything's just simpler, then when you switch from iPhone back to Mac you understand and things click.

Mike's Comment

You can sit in front of a book full of latin words and try to write "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in Latin though you aren't gonna get anywhere. You need a coherent dictionary. Sadly Apple's docs were made for the people in the know. They are incomprehensible to normal human beings. If you want to look you gotta google for beginner friendly tutorials and examples that do what you want to do. Then you study that code, experiment and try to replicate the success. Eventually you'll start understanding and connecting the dots.

I agree with Mike on this one.
 
Objective C is too much to deal with. RB is simple and cross platform. Tick a box for Windows and you're reaching a wider audience (although it's generally better to design the interfaces separately, at least that's what I learned after MemoNet which bombed because it looked and acted like a PC application).

Yeah you are right. RB certainly is much more learner friendly. Xcode expects you to understand. Though Xcode's power exceeds RB's. There are trade offs though in the long run Obj-C is a great language to learn.

So Mike, you want a 5 min hello world message box application tutorial.
Anyone else want a tutorial explaining something?


-Gan

[GMG Mike]

I've written client/server systems in Java and a multi-million dollar grossing advertising system in PHP/MySQL - and I couldn't intuitively figure out how to make a gotdamn button display a gotdamn message box in Objective-C.

I had this figured out in REALbasic in 5 minutes. When I was 12.

[WarHampster]

All I see when I look at obj-c syntax are those ugly hard brackets everywhere.

obj-c:

Code: [Select]

Thing *myThing = [Thing new]; 

AHH SO CRYPTIC

java:

Code: [Select]

Thing myThing = new Thing();

Ahhhh

[Gan]

I <3 those brackets.
To you they look useless. Once you get into it you realize what they're actually for and you realize that they work miracles.

@Mike
That sounds impressive. It's too late right now, I'll post a video and source of what you need tomorrow.


-Gan

[WarHampster]

Seriously man, there's a fine line between showing off and genuinely wanting to help people.

I <3 those brackets.
To you they look useless. Once you get into it you realize what they're actually for and you realize that they work miracles.

The brackets are just a syntax difference.

[Teruri]

I tried using Xcode to make a simple program to help me write better stories. Simple stuff like calculating average word length and highlighting long and short sentences. I couldn't figure it out, though. The code looks very confusing.
The upside to Xcode is the easy to use interface builder. So I do have a nice interface with clickable buttons, but they don't do anything (except for a rest button, that one actually works).

[Telstar5]

Yeah you are right. RB certainly is much more learner friendly. Xcode expects you to understand. Though Xcode's power exceeds RB's. There are trade offs though in the long run Obj-C is a great language to learn.

Yeah, RB's more learner friendly and because of that, more powerful that Objective C. If a class doesn't exist on RB, you can make it. It's a system that allows you to write in parts of the language if it doesn't exist.

The problem with Xcode is the elitist crap that comes with it. Somehow, by using RB, we're "lesser developers". How? Because we're not using Apple's SDK? I'm still making software for a platform which has less available software than Windows, so why is there a problem?

[Gan]

Seriously man, there's a fine line between showing off and genuinely wanting to help people.

I'm just kinda excited.

I tried using Xcode to make a simple program to help me write better stories. Simple stuff like calculating average word length and highlighting long and short sentences. I couldn't figure it out, though. The code looks very confusing.
The upside to Xcode is the easy to use interface builder. So I do have a nice interface with clickable buttons, but they don't do anything (except for a rest button, that one actually works).

It is quite hard to just learn by playing with it. If you Googled for some tutorials it'd help immensely.
If you still have that program I can make a video on connecting the interface to the code. Also made code to do some stuff.

Yeah, RB's more learner friendly and because of that, more powerful that Objective C. If a class doesn't exist on RB, you can make it. It's a system that allows you to write in parts of the language if it doesn't exist.

Learner friendly doesn't necessarily mean it's more powerful. It can be spread to a larger crowd though the performance isn't as powerful.
Obj-C works similarly. You can create classes and such.

The problem with Xcode is the elitist crap that comes with it. Somehow, by using RB, we're "lesser developers". How? Because we're not using Apple's SDK? I'm still making software for a platform which has less available software than Windows, so why is there a problem?

Obj-C is a lower level programming language. It's a tiny step above C. C is right above machine code. I think machine code is the base. RB is kinda slow and clunky. It's like a programming language on a programming language. It layers it's runtime over different languages which allows portability but decreases performance significantly.
Programmers who program in RB aren't any lesser. They just aren't making programs as high performance as natively made programs. Such as C#, C, and Obj-C programmers.

Here's the message box tutorial:
5 min long.
Source:
Message Box Source

If you guys want I can make a tutorial on how to make a game from scratch.


-Gan

[WarHampster]

Alright here we go:

[size=15]Gandolf, please help me learn Objective C by writing a game tutorial![/size]

I hope you feel really warm and fuzzy now.