Slashdot effect takes center stage again as geeks from all over the world discuss Apple’s Xcode and Objective-C (a variant of C; a quick and dirty how-to here).
It all started with a simple email exchange between one programmer with Steve Jobs:
From: Nitesh Dhanjani
Subject: Re: Will XCode+ObjC ever suck less?
Date: December 25, 2005 5:27:02 PM CST
To: *****@apple.comI look forward to the improvements! Thanks,
Nitesh.
On Dec 25, 2005, at 5:10 PM, Steve Jobs wrote:
I guess we disagree. First of all, .NET with CLI and managed code runs SLOW, so most serious developers can’t use it because of performance. Second, the libraries in C# are FAR less mature and elegant than those in Cocoa. We are working on a better implementation for garbage collection than we’ve seen out there so far, but in the end its a performance hit and an unpredictable time that is not good for some kinds of apps.
Steve
On Dec 25, 2005, at 2:36 PM, Nitesh Dhanjani wrote:
Objective C is old and clunky. Its almost 2006, and I _still_ have to look out for yucky pointers? I’d love to be able to write native apps with Ruby (or even C#!.) There are open community projects in progress that are trying to bind ruby and C# (mono) with Cocoa, but I’d love for Apple to step in and make this happen faster. Today, Microsoft seems to be _way_ ahead of the development curve – with their .NET implementation, you are allowed to code using a plethora of languages (C#, Python, VB, etc), as long as the interpreter/compiler follows the IL specification – pointers don’t matter, garbage collection is done for you – ah the beautiful world of managed code.
Having said that, most native OSX apps are still beautiful and well designed. Imagine how much better we could do if the developers had a more flexible choice of languages? I can _bet_ you a lot of OSX app developers use Objective C because they have no other choice.
Nitesh.
On Dec 25, 2005, at 3:11 PM, Steve Jobs wrote:
Actually, Objective C is pretty great. Its far nicer than most other ways of writing apps. What don’t you like about it? What do you like better?
Steve
On Dec 25, 2005, at 11:59 AM, Nitesh Dhanjani wrote:
Hi Steve
Will it ever be easy to write native OSX GUI apps? Objective C sucks.
Thanks,
Nitesh.
More geeks talking about it here.
It’s been said that Steve Jobs has a team of secretaries that comb through all his emails on a daily basis. I guess he ain’t taking chances on important messages. But it’s gratifying to see Jobs himself working on Christmas day having replied to this Nitesh guy several times throughout the day. Impressive stuff. Being a geek, a perfectionist and a workaholic at the same time can pay off sometimes.