Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Exploring the Mac OS X Object System

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the a-deep-look-into-it dept.

Philippe writes "F-Script is an integrated set of tools that makes it possible to interactively explore and manipulate Cocoa objects as well as script them using new high-level programming techniques. This new article, Exploring Cocoa with F-Script, shows you how to use some of its most impressive features and demonstrates how it can be a useful addition to your developer toolkit."

5 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. PyObjC? by Fiznarp · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've seen Cocoa scripted with PyObjC and python Cocoa bindings.

    Apple currently employs one of the maintainers of PyObjC.

    Would someone informed care to explain if/when F-Script would be a better choice?

    1. Re:PyObjC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      F-Script can be attached to a running application. F-Script has been around since NextStep and before Python existed. Any other questions?

  2. How many? by andrewman327 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was wondering how many Mac-specific development platforms are out there. Obviously there are loads of them for Windows, but how many just for Mac?

    As much as this will get me flamed, I code in Java when I am writing applications for Mac. I find it works well enough, but I am interested in becoming a bit more versitile.

    --
    Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
    1. Re:How many? by quadelirus · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you mean development frameworks then Cocoa is the way to go. Carbon is older and mostly included for backwards compatibility. Cocoa is the new hotness. As far as IDE's go, I use XCode2 and InterfaceBuilder. They are easy to use once you know where things are. I wish they had some sort of tabbed editor and I would reccomend dual monitors while developing due to the number of windows you will have open, but other than that it is a great product.

      A couple of notes:

      I, like you, come from a Java background and have recently begun to write native Mac apps. I use XCode and InterfaceBuilder and they work together really well to write Cocoa apps very quickly. I decided to learn Objective-C because for some reason I thought it would be idea to know yet another language, but Java-Cocoa should work just as well.

      I'm not sure if this is the same for Java-Cocoa, but in Objective-C/Cocoa the hardest thing for me to get used to was the graphical nature of the programming. In many languages you have API's that allow you to do things like Hello World programs and/or more complex programs like a simple browser without writing a line of code. You design the interface graphically and hit run and it works. The difference between most of those (for isntance JBuilder) and Cocoa development is that in JBuilder, even if you don't physically write the interface code, it gets coded to your class file as standard Java code. In cocoa this isn't the case. The interface is housed in a file called a NIB file. Your average programmer will probably not ever have to look directly at the contents of a NIB. Also connections between classes is created graphically. For instance, if you want to have a button do something when it is clicked you don't add an onclick listener anywhere in the code. Instead you have a special type of method in your controller class that handles actions and then in interface builder you control click on the button and drag it to the instance of your class and tell it to connect to the action. AFAIK, this MUST be done graphically. It can't be coded. Or at least, it is strongly discouraged. This graphical nature took me quite awhile to get used to.

  3. Cringely? by Jerk+City+Troll · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is that you?

    --
    Join Tor today!