Which Coding Framework for Mac OS X ?

DrStrangeLoop asks: "I am in the progress of getting into coding for Mac OS X, and I am wondering which GUI framework/language i should focus on. Apparantly, there are at least three options: the Cocoa Objective-C API [I don't want to learn Objective-c, but it seems that's how Apple wants me to code], the Cocoa Java API [gets compiled to PPC binaries, lots of APIs available [think Google], but absolutely no decent documentation to be found] and Swing Java classes [look 'n feel of Cocoa, but portable]. However, the most important feature for me is a clean and easy IPC with BSD layer processes. I figure sockets will work with all options, but what about the other mechanisms? Any suggestions?" Update: 10/13 22:08 GMT by C :For those curious about the Cocoa/Carbon debate, you can find an article that discusses this very issue, here. Thanks to the folks over at Freenode's #macdev for providing the link.

Comments

You also have Carbon

[akac]

Carbon is a good API to begin with. You can use C++ or C and access all the nice GUI of OS X.

Cocoa just makes things a lot easier.

I like to think of it this way (though technically its wrong, its a nice way to think of it): Win32 == Carbon; .NET == Cocoa

Re:You also have Carbon

[BitGeek]

Carbon only exists to support people who have existing Mac OS applications that they want to move to OS X.

If you're beginning, learn Objective C and use cocoa.

There is no reason to use carbon for new applications. You can access every API that exists in carbon from within cocoa apps and objective-c, but the reverse isn't true.

With Cocoa you get everything Carbon has, but with Carbon you don't get everyhting Cocoa has-- especially the superiority of Objective-C and the Appkit and Foundation frameworks.

Anything you really need to do, you can do in carbon, its just a lot harder.

There's no reason not to use Cocoa for Mac applications.

learning objective c

[Dougal]

To be honest, I'd say get over it and learn Objective C. For an experienced programmer it won't take you long to get to grasps with the basics of Objective C, and Cocoa is really easy to work with. Who knows, you might even grow to like it :) At first I thought Objective C was weird, but now I really like it.

Get a beginners book and work your way through it. I recommend Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass, published by Addison Wesley, ISBN 0201726831. This seems to be what most people learn from.

Re:learning objective c

[jimbolaya]

Knowing Java will give you a big head start, since it's syntax is also based on C. There are numerous differences, to be sure, but I don't imagine you'll have a hard time. Probably the trickiest things for a Java developer who has never used C will be pointers, and header files, and of course, memory management. Obj-C uses reference counting, which is lower-maintenance that C or C++, but not nearly as easy as the garbage collection of Java.

Coming from Java, you may want to use "Objective-C++" simply for the ability to declare local variables anywhere in your code. Straight C and Obj-C only let you declare local variable at the beginning of a block, but Java, C++, and Obj-C++ let you declare them anywhere in your method. Obj-C++ gives you a bunch of other stuff I don't even know about, but for me, all I care about is the flexibility with local variables. Simply use the ".mm" extension instead of ".m" for your source files.

Seems like you answered the question yourself.

[tqbf]

If you need "clean and easy" integration with "BSD IPC" (the native programming interface of the underlying Darwin operating system), you need to be able to use its C-language calling interface. Of the 3 kits you mentioned, Cocoa/Objective-C is the only one that offers that.

The ready-made integration offered by your two Java alternatives may not be useful for hardcore I/O anyways. How do you get a handle on an fd-based resource (/dev/bpf*, for instance) and then integrate the fd with your event loop?

My moving-forward plan has been to maintain my application logic in standard C/C++, and use Cocoa/ObjC to build UI (and nothing else) on top of that. Since most good BSD code is asynchronous, and Cocoa/CoreFoundation lets you control the event loop at the "select()" level, this works fine for me.

Cocoa all the way

[petrilli]

As someone who grew up around Macs, and then moved to NeXT, I'd have to say that if you know C, and understand OO principles (prefferably in the Smalltalk model, not C++), then you can pick up Objective-C in an afternoon. It's really just some extensions to C. Carbon is a great set of APIs if you've got 10 years of Toolbox experience on the Mac, but otherwise, it's much harder to learn the ins and outs.

Cocoa, because of it's past with NeXTstep, has a lot of emphasis on rapid-prototyping and dynamicism. Lots of delegation, lots of easy stuff to do to get an effective solution. As for Java, I'd have to follow Aaron Hilldegrass' advice... don't. Not on the Mac, not unless your goal is cross-platform. If you're writing for the Mac, write in Objective-C, C++, or even REALbasic, but not Java. There's simply no good reason.

Having written nearly identical programs many years ago for Mac, PC and NeXTstep, I'd say this. Mac and PC (Mac = traditional Toolbox on OS7.x) and Win32 are roughly equivelent to get the work done. Different, but one isn't necessarily easier. The NeXTstep app was implemented in 1/3 of the time, and that included me learning NeXTstep.

Re:Don't use Cocoa

[WoofLu]

While it is true that the Carbon framework exists, it doesn't give you access to the full capabilities of Quartz/Aqua ..
Carbon was designed to ease the porting of old OS9 apps to OSX, and AFAIK is meant to vanish.

You'd better use Cocoa and learn ObjC .. If you have basic C skills, you should be able to learn it quickly.

My two cents.

Let the application dictate the language

[ageitgey]

I think you are missing a vital point. You can't just say "I'm getting into coding, is X or Y better?"

What is it exactly that you are writing? If you are writing a 3-D game, then the Java-Cocoa API is probably out. If you are porting your java-based massive application to Mac, than ObjC is probably out.

Basically, choose the one that fits your application's needs. If you just want to mess around though, go with Java-Cocoa just because it's more immediate.

Re:Let the application dictate the language

[bnenning]

Good advice in general, but regarding this point:

If you are porting your java-based massive application to Mac, than ObjC is probably out.

That's not necessarily the case. Cocoa can (mostly) transparently manipulate Java objects from Objective C. See here for more info.

Nothing wrong with Objective C

[zulux]

I love C++, templates, and think nothing of derfrrencing a pointer to a vector of objects that are stored in a crazy containter that I cobbeled together last night while high on cough syrup and mountain dew:

However -

Objective C kicks ass for GUI apps. It's easy to learn, and hides some of c's rough edges, and it's fast to compile. Make no mistake - nobody's going to code the next operatig system in it - but for GUI apps, take this good tool and run with it.

Mozilla

[Fished]

I asked myself the same question a few months ago, and came to the conclusion that unless/until I have an application that requires a native API, I would do everything in Mozilla. In practice, this means a combination of XPCOM, XUL, RDF and javascript. It's like developing a really advanced web page, but you're not stuck in a browser framework.

Several advantages:

1. Easy cross platform. Your app will run on any platform Mozilla/Netscape run on.
2. Easy development. Subjectively, development goes a lot faster than under a traditional framework.
3. Something you probably already know: most people I know who program already know HTML and Javascript to some degree. From there, it's a very small leap to XUL and Javascript.

The major disadvantage is that it will necessarily be a little slower than a custom coded native solution. But who cares for most apps? With recent Mozilla versions, it's more than fast enough. Anyway, my $0.02

Patrick

Re:Mozilla

[Lao-Tzu]

As a co-author and currently sole developer of a Mozilla component application, I feel I'm qualified to voice an opinion on this. (MOOzilla being the application)

Mozilla is really damn cool. You can do some amazing things by combining existing Mozilla code with your application. For example, yesterday I discovered a way to dump an entire MOO/MUD session into an HTML file by using a function in nsContentAreaUtils.js. This was funky. It was not, however, exactly what I wanted, so I now need to write similar code myself. The point is that Mozilla is great...

But I can't see using it for anything that doesn't somehow relate to web browsing or networking. I know there have been efforts to do elaborate things like writting Office suites in Mozilla, but I don't think it's really feasible because the API availble through XPCOM is more geared towards this kind of web-based development. In MFC, for example, you have access to beautiful serialization and dynamic runtime creation and other nifty stuff that makes coding easy.

Re:Mozilla

[Fished]

People responding seem to be missing a crucial point: I am not talking about a web application here. I am talking about using the mozilla framework to develop a local application. This is actually how Mozilla, including Mail, Messenger and Composer, is developed.

If you haven't looked at it closely, don't knock it. Take a look at Creating Applications with Mozilla, from O'Reilly (of course.)

Don't overlook REALbasic

[dpbsmith]

I'm not sure whether it is suitable, but It does give access to the full API via "declare" statements.

Don't reject it out of hand just because it isn't a "macho" language.

I don't say it's the right environment for you. I do say you're being foolish if you don't at least take a look at it.

You can make a very good evaluation because REALsoftwarelets you download a version that is complete, and comes with full documentation (it produces time-crippled applications that only work for thirty days).

Re:Don't overlook REALbasic

[Pahroza]

How could someone possibly overlook RB? Have you seen the footprint of RB apps ? Blech. Cocoa is the way to go.

Re:Cocoa all the way - Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

The above poster hit the nail on the head.

Now, for my own two cents regarding Java+Cocoa: Don't do it. Some friends and I programmed a Jabber-based instant messenger in Java and Cocoa before OSX was officially released. Working with the beta frameworks was a nightmare, for one simple reason: Nobody else was doing anything with Java and Cocoa. To my knowledge, there are only a handful that work with it now.

Like other posters have said, if you're just starting out on a platform, get over your fear of learning a new language. Objective C + Cocoa on OSX and C# + Windows Forms on WXP are the way to go. Also, Carbon, like MFC on Windows, is only really useful if you've got a lot of experience with the older Mac operating systems. There's a lot of cruft in there that's not really necessary and can be a pain to learn. You should find yourself developing a lot cleaner code a lot faster if you take the time to learn the newer tools available.

Have fun. =)

Obligatory resume (on topic because it lists the project!... riiight): http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~awooster/resume.htm

Cocoa / Obj-C

[Sahib!]

Definitely, learn Cocoa and Objective C if you can, just for the experience of realizing how much better it is that most of your other choices. With InterfaceBuilder, you can completely abstract your UI from the core of your code.

Since you say you want to use the BSD layer, I suggest making a command-line version of this core code first (you can do this in C or C++), since this will be immediately more portable to other Unices. Once that is done, tying that code in with the UI you build in InterfaceBuilder is simple.

Also, there are some pretty interesting native IPC libraries in Mach. If you don't mind your code being tied to Mach, you should check that out as well.

Oh, did I mention that Apple's developer tools and documentation are free for download?

use Cocoa

[d3xt3r]

As another person just getting into the OS X programming game, I was wondering the same thing. After looking around Apple's web site, and playing around with the different frameworks, it became apparent to me the Cocoa + Obj-C was the way to go.

Objective C is easy to learn and can be intermixed in the same source files with C++ (and obviously C). It's one of those "use the right tools for the right job" things. The GUI is most easily programmed with Cocoa using Objective-C, but if there's a nice library you want to utilize that's written in C++, there's nothing stopping you from using it.

Once you get comfortable with Objective-C, you realize that it is almost as easy to use as Java.

Now for the alternatives:

1. Java Swing on OS X: I have a database tool that I am creating as a cross platform app that is written entirely in Java using Swing. It runs beautifully on OS X and looks (almost out-of-the-box) like a native application. However, it is still slower than a native app. Users who expect a snappy GUI will be disappointed with a Java Swing app on OS X. While it performs admirably better on OS X than Windows or Linux, I'd stay away from Java Swing if cross-platform binary compatability is not a major requirement.
2. Carbon: From what I could understand from Apple's web site, Carbon exits for one reason: to give developers a migration path from OS 9 to OS X. Carbon is a gateway API since Cocoa simply is unsupported on OS 9. It is obvious that Apple's go-forward plans are for Cocoa and Objective-C.
3. Java and Interface Builder: I serisouly recommend not using this combination. You are going to force your Mac OS X only application to run in a Java VM without the cross-platform benefits of Java. This approach only seems logical if your backend is written Java and you want to create native GUIs on all platforms. I would stay away from this for an OS X only application.

Java Cocoa

[BlueGecko]

the Cocoa Java API [gets compiled to PPC binaries, lots of APIs available [think Google], but absolutely no decent documentation to be found]

First, Java Cocoa is not native. Your application will still run on the Java VM. In my mind, it fills a very narrow purpose: it allows you to quickly turn a 100% Java application into an application that behaves exactly like a truly native OS X application and which can take advantage of the niceties that provides (for example, Services support, Sheets, Quartz, etc.). Secondly, I hear the complaint about the lack of Java API documentation all of the time, and I honestly don't understand it. Admitting that I've been working in NEXTSTEP and later OpenStep and then Cocoa for a very long time, Apple provides a detailed Java API reference that has class-for-class and method-for-method documentation exactly on par with the ObjC documentation and also provides a tutorial for Java developers that literally produces exactly the same application as the ObjC Cocoa tutorial. You need merely do both tutorials to see how exactly the two APIs line up. The only somewhat legitimate complaint is that Apple examples typically come as ObjC, but how hard is it, honestly, to figure out that [aSpellingChecker ignoreWord: @"bodacious" inSpellDocumentWithTag: myTag] becomes aSpellingChecker.ignoreWord("bodacious", myTag)? The rules for ObjC-to-Java conversion of APIs and code are very straight-forward:

1. Any code relating to autorelease pools may be deleted and ignored (at least in basic code; by the time you need to make use of manual garbage collection in Java Cocoa (multithreaded code in the GUI being a big one), bluntly, you'll already know enough that it won't bother you)
2. Java class names remain identical to their ObjC counterparts, and are in either com.apple.cocoa.foundation if they are part of the ObjC FoundationKit and part of com.apple.cocoa.application if they are part of the ObjC AppKit. (QuickTime is in its own API and really is a separate discussion, since "QuickTime for Java" has existed for several years now and is more a part of Carbon than Cocoa.)
3. Method names for Java always consist of the first part of the ObjC identifier and always take the same parameters (except that NSStrings become java.lang.String). For example, (void)NSSpellChecker>>ignoreWord:(NSString *)inSpellDocumentWithTag:(int) becomes void NSSpellChecker.ignoreWord(String, int).

All that said, I would strongly recommend you take the time to learn ObjC Cocoa. I use Java Cocoa when I am grafting a Cocoa UI onto Java code, but ObjC is still faster (though the gap is narrowing) and I still honestly believe the language is still a bit more productive due to things such as Categories, Smalltalk-style method names, and other things. If you know C and Java and are familiar with the concepts of reference-counted garbage collection, learning ObjC will take you the better part of a morning.

Don't discount Cocoa!

[critic666]

Truthfully, Objective-C takes ~2 hours to learn. In fact, check out the first chapter of my (needing-to-be-updated) tutorial, Using Objective-C++ on Mac OS X here for a comparison of ObjC to C++.

I used to be a C++ programmer, and then I spent some time playing w/ Cocoa, learning how the system works, and now, if Cocoa goes away, I think I'll quit programming. Its simple elegance and power is astounding, and freeze-dried objects in the NIBs are just cool. Just play w/ some of the tutorials (e.g. currency converter) before you discount it.

However, Cocoa-Java is kind of worthless. It's a kludge, and some of Cocoa's coolness comes from the weak-typing (id is slick--sort of a void* you can send messages to). Take a look @ cocoadevcentral, too.

Carbon, though, is klunky by comparison. Programming for that is just like programming for Windows/Linux...it's an API, and you can do nifty stuff, but it's not slick. Cocoa is slick. 'nuff said :)

Josh

Re:Best Framework for Mac OS X

[malice]

You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. Many parts of Cocoa are built on top of Carbon -- there is no "emulation layer" for Carbon calls, nor are carbon applications inherently slower than Cocoa applications.

Carbon and Cocoa are merely two APIs that allow you to do the same thing. Carbon is procedural, Cocoa is object oriented.

Many things are easier to prototype and get your initial code up and running in Cocoa, but like an OO framework, you must design your object hierarchy well ahead of time.

There is also a rather serious learning curve for Cocoa, and if you decide to go with Cocoa over Carbon, you've essentially written off any xplat possibilities.

Most of the major applications for Mac OS X are written in Carbon, and will continue to be. Cocoa is a very cool OO framework, but it isn't right for every project, and the misinformation you're spreading is doing no one any good.

Re:I recommend . . .

[lemkebeth]

You wrote:

Truth hurts, doesn't it, fanboys? If it isn't true, explain to me why what are free utilities for Windows machines are $20-$30 extortionware for the Mac.

:stares in disbelief:

um actually, stuff that is Free under the MacOS/MacOS X costs money on Windows for the same thing from another developer.

I use Windows at work and getting the same function as provided by a freeware Mac app costs money on Windows.

Mind you there are always exceptions to the rule.

My theory is that all Windows developers code fro money while some developers on other platforms code to give something back or just for the love of the platform (be it Linux, BSD, Mac, or something else).

Re:Speaking from experience...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Cocoa is alright, except that it uses Objective C. Objective C is a bastard child of C and C++, and it doesn't really mesh too well.

Spoken like a true C++ programmer. Objective C is not a "bastard child of C and C++;" in fact, Objective C and C++ share nothing in common at all except for the C language, of which both are supersets.

Objective C is a much simpler language than C++. Oft-troublesome C++ features like templates, overloading, multiple inheritance, virtual functions, and "friends" aren't implemented in Objective C. Mastering C++ can take years, while mastering Objective C is a task for a couple of afternoons.

Now Nextstep, that's a whole different ballgame. ;)

No, it's not. Cocoa is essentially NextStep.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Might want to read this

[Mindcrym]

Check out the article Introduction To and Experiences With Mac Cocoa from Kuro5hin.

Re:The Master Of C

[oh2]

I agree. Mastering C takes at least three days, four if you need to go to the bathroom.

Re:native != better

[Twirlip of the Mists]

A well-designed application will separate logic from presentation, at least to some extent. Because the Cocoa API is most easily called from Objective C, programmers are free to write their logic in straight ANSI C, and use Cocoa user interfaces for the presentation layer.

The same is true of Java; in fact, many programmers may prefer this. You can write all your application logic in pure Java, and use Cocoa/Java code for the user interface. If the need ever arises to implement a different user interface toolkit, you can just replace the Cocoa/Java code-- which will probably be only a small fraction of your total code base-- with Swing/Java or whatever you please.

The important thing to remember, here, is that, on the Mac platform, native GUI applications are always-- always-- superior to non-native GUI applications. If you don't use native APIs for the interface, you're crippling yourself from the outset.

Here's how I see it

[Dr. Awktagon]

I just started programming Mac OS X (I did a little Mac programming in the System 7 days and HATED it, since I was programming Unix at the time). But OS X is great.

I'm focusing on Cocoa myself, but here are some data points for you:

Objective-C is a lovely language. I looked it at back in the NeXT days and thought "cute, but it'll disappear and be replaced by a better version of C++". Well, Objective-C is still here, and C++ never got any "better". So you ought to learn Objective-C, it's very much like Smalltalk mixed with C, very elegant. I might start writing Linux and BSD programs in it. Also, it interfaces easily with the BSD side of Mac OS X. For instance, you want math libraries? You just use the standard math.h stuff! That's nice.

Don't use the Java Cocoa stuff. It STINKS. I think they just added it for a "bullet point". The documentation isn't as complete. It's very slow. Objective-C is a nicer language anyway, since it is dynamic. With Java you have to use a lot of reflection hacks to get the same results, not nearly as elegant.

Java DOES NOT (correct me if I'm wrong) compile to native code with ProjectBuilder. ProjectBuilder simply wraps a launcher around the java bytecode. If you drill down into the application package, you'll find the regular jar files.

The use of the Java Swing (non-Cocoa) stuff is simply to get your existing Java apps up and running fast. It took me just a few minutes to turn a Java program I wrote on Linux with Forte into a double-clickable (but slow) Mac OS application. Don't bother using this for new stuff. Your program might LOOK like an Aqua app, but it's really Swing.

Carbon let's you use C/C++. But it isn't a "compatibility layer" .. it's not obsolete or "going away". It's simply a cleaned-up version of the original Mac API. So if you choose this route, don't feel like you'll have to stop using it one day or something. I think Apple will support it indefinitely, alongside Cocoa.

Cocoa is a little slower than Carbon, because Objective-C is a dynamic language, and it has to decide things at run-time (like, say, Perl). Not a big deal these days, but raw speed is not a selling point of Cocoa GUIs.

AppleScript Studio: if you like applescript, you can write full applications in it. Just like on Linux you might want to throw together a simple Python script, etc., with a GUI. It doesn't hurt to learn applescript, especially if your Cocoa apps will be scriptable.

Interface Builder is just soil-your-pants awesome and let's you create, instantiate, and hook together non-GUI objects, right along with GUI objects. Also note that IB actually creates the GUI and other objects and serializes them to a disk file. It doesn't create any code or do any other tricks. And XML is used throughout for properties, etc..

So IMO your best choices are: Cocoa/Objective-C, or Carbon/C (or C++, blech). And I think everyone should learn Objective-C .. I'd like to see it used more for non-Mac stuff too.

Everything you need, including books and tutorials, comes on the Developer CD. Go through the Cocoa/ObjC tutorial.

Also note that if you sign up for the Apple Developer stuff, you have to agree to some pretty disgusting terms, including giving Apple the right to search your place of business on 24 hours notice. I shit you not.

Re:The Master Of C

[Jorrit]

The difficulty of learning a language has little to do with the number of keywords it has. It is more a matter of how those keywords (and operators) are used together to enable programmers to do things. C is not that hard but in some cases it can get complex compared to other languages (even if those other languages have more keywords). Pointer arithmetic is one area in which many people struggle. Especially if you come from a programming language (like Java, ...) which doesn't have that.

C++ adds a number of keywords to the C language but not that much. Even so it is a highly complex language with lots of special constructs and exceptions.

Greetings,

Re:Don't use Cocoa

[bnenning]

Um, no. Carbon is a transitional API, designed to make it easy for OS 9 apps to migrate to OS X. It's not bad, but it's procedural and requires you do to tons of stuff by hand that Cocoa gives you for free. If you're writing a new Mac OS X app, there's very little reason to use Carbon.

Re:Don't use Cocoa

[jimbolaya]

Not quite. Both Cocoa and Carbon libraries call a lower-level C library called Core Foundation. Both Carbon and Cocoa could be roughly considered wrappers around Core Foundation, but I wouldn't call Cocoa a wrapper around Carbon.

There may be exceptions, however. Perhaps, for instance, the Cocoa QuickTime classes are wrappers around the Carbon classes. Since I haven't done any QT programming at all, I'm merely speculating.

many choices, choose one which fits your style

[tim1724]

There are two separate issues here: which GUI toolkit to use, and whch language to use. First, choose the GUI toolkit, and then choose one of the programming languages which can be used with that toolkit.

1. Choose a GUI toolkit
   • Carbon - a cleaned-up version of the original Macintosh Toolbox. It's big and complicated (as should be expected for something which has been evolving over 18 years) and may be somewhat annoying if you don't have previous Mac Toolbox experience.
   • Cocoa - the OpenStep API with a few new features. Clean and simple object-oriented interface designed around the Objective C language. Good for rapid development of GUIs.
   • Swing - Apple provides a Mac OS X implementation of Swing. With a little work, you can make a Swing program look almost native. (But not quite.. a few things end up looking or behaving slightly wrong.) A good choice if you want cross-platform Java code.
   • QT - The Mac OS X version is based on Carbon, so it should look like any native program. A good choice for cross-platform portability.
   • Tk - as in Tcl/Tk .. there's a Carbon port of Tk, but I've had some problems with it.
   • other cross-platform toolkits - There are a few others (wxWindows, for exmaple) but I don't know much about them. As far as I know, they're all built on top of Carbon.
   • Mac-specific libraries built on top of Carbon - things like PowerPlant (a C++ library from Metrowerks) make dealing with Carbon a bit easier.
2. Choose a language

   Most of the toolkits support multiple languages.

   • Carbon: It's intended to be used from C (although you'll still find a few remnants of its Pascal roots) so it's not object oriented. You can use it from C, C++ (directly or via object-oriented layers like PowerPlant), RealBASIC, and probably a few others.
   • Cocoa: It was designed around the Objective C language, but Apple also provides Java bindings. Java isn't a particularly good fit for Cocoa (better than C++ would be, though) so I don't recommend it. There is a Perl binding called CamelBones which works rather well (Perl and Cocoa go together very well in my opinion). I think Python and Ruby bindings may be available as well.

For new development, I'd strongly recommend using Cocoa with Objective C. Don't be afraid of Objective C! It's a very simple extension to plain old ANSI C. The additional syntax is minimal (unlike C++) and most of the code you write will be plain old C. Once you've learned Cocoa using Objective C, you may want to use it in Perl via CamelBones. But I'd strongly recommend using Objective C to learn Cocoa, otherwise you won't understand a lot of the reasons why things work the way they do. Don't use Cocoa with Java, unless you don't know C. And even then I'd recommand learning C so you can use Cocoa with ObjC.

If you want a plain old non-OO API, Carbon isn't all that bad. You'll need to get a good reference, as there are a lot of functions and types to learn about. (Whereas Cocoa is predictable enough that you can usually guess method names!) Or you can use one of the C++-based wrappers such as QT or PowerPlant.

Re:The Master Of C

[orthogonal]

Re C and pointers:

Understanding pointers is a challenge for many C newbies. It helps if you remember that a pointer is just a number, usually a variable but sometimes a constant, which represents an address in memory. It helps even more if you can remember that that address in memory is just an offset from the start of the memory (note this only works on architectures with flat addressing; it gets a bit hairier on, say, DOS).

Since C is a pass by value language, passing a pointer (or anything else) means passing a copy of a value. In the case of a pointer, that means a copy of the address, so now both the caller and the called function know that some memory exists, and can (in the abscence of const) modify it.

Since the pointer is just a number, it can be added to. Adding to a pointer actually means that the address is incremented by the amount of the addition times the size of the thing being pointed to. In other words, the compiler takes some pains to ensure one is alsays pointing to the start of what should be an object, and not within the guts of the object. So if I declare a a pointer to a 2 byte sized object, adding one to the pointer will point me to the next two byte oject in memory, and not to the second byte of the first object.

Naturally, the programmer must allocate the memory to be pointed to. The pointer is merely an address, it's not the memory being addressed. Declaring a pointer gives the programmer a place to write the address down; it does not create the mmemory: the fucntion call malloc ("memory allocate" ) "creates" the memory.

I beleieve the OP noted he came from an assembly background, which means that he's used pointers (untyped ones at that) so it may be less of a challenge.

The other C pitfalls for the unwary are the declaration structure, and (related) to this, the way arrays are handled. Several primers exist on decoding declarartion syntax; in a nutshell, declarations should be read from the inside out, left to right until a right parenthesis forces reading right to left. The declarartion:

int ( *f )( char ) ;
is read "f is a pointer to a function taking a char argument and returning an int.

In C, arrays are not first class objects, and so when passed to functions they "decay" to pointers to the first element of the array. An array name can be treated like a pointer, and indexing into an array is defined by the language to be exactly equivalent to dereferencing an array plus the index:
Given
char array[ 4 ] ;
array[ 0 ] is just *( array + 0 ); and array[ 3 ] is just *( array + 3 ). array[ 4 ] is *( array + 4 ) and is an illegal (well, undefined) dereferencing of the "element" one past the end of the array.

I have said too much for a post, so I'll end now. The point is, as long as one remembers a few key ideas: pass by value, pointers are numbers for addresses, and declarations need to be read inside-out, C is rather straigtforward.

my experience

[g4dget]

Unfortunately, there really is no ideal solution.

I would not be scared of learning Objective-C--it is a very simple language and easy to learn, and its object model is very convenient. But in other ways, Cocoa using Objective-C is a somewhat outdated programming environment: the GUI design tools were great in the 1980's, but they are pretty dated by today's standards. And resource management in Objective-C and Cocoa is a lot more work and a lot more error prone than in Java or C++. On the plus side, Cocoa is what Apple really wants you to use, and that's where they seem to be putting a lot of their efforts.

Cocoa using Java is probably in a certain sense "the best" programming environment for the Mac: it's modern, easy to develop in, and mostly safe. It's also pretty well supported. But it retains many of the warts of the Cocoa APIs and, as you observed, is not all that well documented.

With either Cocoa-based solution, you also have to ask yourself whether you believe that Cocoa has a future and whether it's worth learning it. I don't see much of a future for Cocoa, at least in its current form. Apple has made no moves to standardize it or open it up, so it is Mac only. Even if Apple pushed for more widespread adoption, they'd have to make big changes to make it palatable to industry, like adding precise garbage collection and better error checking to Objective-C, with the resulting changes to the APIs. An example of work in that direction can be found here (yes, that is "gerbil.org", but it's a site about programming, really).

Swing Java is probably the least hassle: it's well documented, it works very well on Macintosh, and you still get the native look-and-feel. It has modern resource management and modern layout management. Knowing Swing is useful and helps you on other platforms as well. And its object system is fairly similar to that of Objective-C. But some of the more advanced features have been buggy in the past (e.g., audio input, etc.). You can, however, combine Swing and Cocoa APIs, using Swing for the GUI and dropping down into native APIs only when Sun's cross-platform APIs fail you.

If you use one of the Java-based solutions but find the Java type system too constraining, you can use Jython, a Java-based implementation of Python. You can choose to run it interactively or compiled. It's great for exploring the Cocoa APIs (or the Swing APIs).

Another choice you may want to consider is wxWindows. Recent versions run very well on MacOSX and look native. If you want to see an example of an application written in wxWindows, take a look at Audacity.

I tried all these different approaches, and I ended up doing most of my Mac programming in Java/Swing and wxWindows.

Cocoa with Objective C. Its the only way.

[BitGeek]

IF you already know C then learning Objective-C will take a week or two. If you know C++ or Java, then learning Objective-C will take a day or two.

Cocoa is, bar none, the best environment to develop applications under, on any platform. Therefore, if you've already chosen the Mac platform for your App, then use Cocoa.

Carbon is there fore backwards compatibility. Some parts of the OS are still carbon, and carbon and cocoa have been "toll free bridged" in places so you can use data structures interchangably. but it is much slower to build an app with carbon than cocoa.

So here's the simple way to answer your question:
1) IF you simply must use Java, or want to eventually run on multiple platforms, use Cocoa-Java (Which is well documented. Get Cocoa Browser to get easy access to the docs.) Use any Cocoa book to learn how to write in cocoa-java, just use the Java APIS instead of the Objective-C ones. Though Java isn't perfectly supported and Objective-C is recommended if you don't HAVE to use Java.

2) IF you have a large application ( greater than 10,000 lines) then it may be better to use carbon. A huge app, like photosohop, it definately makes sense. but any small application would be better off with rewriting the UI using the Appkit and Objective-C and just bringing over the calculation and graphics stuff from the previous version as-is. After all, Objective-C and C code (and even C++ code and Java) can be intermixed.

3) You should never start a new application using Carbon. Carbon is for backwards compatibility. IF you're starting a new application, use Cocoa and you'll save so much time with the superior cocoa apis that the time it took to learn them will be more than made up for.

I had a Java application that I wanted to bring to Mac OS X. I started down the path of Cocoa-Java and quickly realized that objective-c was recommended, so I checked it out and discovered even the fact that I was learning a new language, as well as a bunch of new frameworks, I was getting a lot more work done faster using Objective-C and Cocoa than I have in the past with Java.

Carbon is there for backwards compatibility when it doesn't make sense to rewrite the app. Cocoa-Java is there when you have a JAva app you want to migrate. But Cocoa with Objective-C is the clear, definite, best way to go under Mac OS X.

And anyone who's taken the time to learn it will tell you that it is far superior to the alternatives.

I dread dealing with Carbon APIs now as they invariably turn into time sinks where it seems to tkae 4-8 times as much effort to get something done as it would if there were a cocoa api for the area in question.

Go Cocoa/Objective-C.

Re:The Master Of C

[Frymaster]

yes, the basic *concept* of pointers is easy and the implimentation as outlined in the hello world calibre demo code that comes with most tutorials is simple... but the reality of memory management in non-trivial apps is quite different. why do you think there are so many memory profilers and leak-detectors on the market?

in obj-c memory mgmt is much better handled. when you make an object a "reserve" is put on it. when yr done with the object, you "release" it. you can add as many reserves as you want and release them when you wish. when the reserve count finally reaches zero, the object is deallocated. brilliant!

the skinny on obj-c and memory is here

if you find you have objects deallocating prematurely and are losing track of yr reference counting, get the object meter from omni group (makers of omniweb). there's a free demo license that works quite well for the budget-challenged.