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Ask Slashdot: Which Classic OOP Compiled Language: Objective-C Or C++?
Qbertino writes: I've been trying to pick up a classic, object-oriented, compiled language since the early 90s, but have never gotten around to it. C++ was always on my radar, but I'm a little torn to-and-fro with Objective-C. Objective-C is the obvious choice if you also want to make money developing for Mac OS X, but for the stuff I want to do, both languages would suffice on all platforms. I do want to start out on x86 Linux, though, and also use it as my main development platform. Yes, I know quite a few other languages, but I want to get into a widespread compiled language that has good ties into FOSS. Both Objective-C and C++ fit that bill. What do you recommend? How do these two programming languages compare with each other, and how easy is cross-platform development in either? (Primarily GUI-free, "headless" applications.)
I'd go with C++ as the toolchain is mature and if you want to do any GUI work there's Qt, etc. Obj-C is more limited on Linux, but I"m sure the Windowmaker guys would love to have some more folks on board.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
I wish people would stop treating modern C++ as if time had been standing still in the past decades. Yes, C++ is complex, but also expressive. Modern features (e.g. lambdas+auto+templates) often let you write code which is just as concise as its Ruby counterpart, but much more efficient.
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
C++ can be clean. The problem is really Macro metaprogramming madness tends to lead to some really strange code and sometimes straight up gibberish. I much prefer Objective C as well, I think its terse, readable and *usually* fairly resistant to a lot of the gunk C++ has accumulated. HOWEVER with that said C++ *can* be well written and clear. Hell even PERL can be. Its just that often it isn't.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Object Pascal that is. It's available in Free Pascal for a lot of operating systems and is a small and fast development environment.
I was surprised to find how clean Obj-C was. Eventually, I figured out that it's because of two things:
[1] The weird at first [receiver message] syntax makes it explicit that it is a message passing object model. I find that a natural and helpful model, rather than the procedural-like syntax of C++ and Java. The syntax helps me think in objects, with a clean visual and mental distinction between the Obj bits and the procedural bits.
[2] NextStep is a thing of beauty.
Against that, modern C++ has more modern and advanced syntax (lambda, templates). I'm not sure they make up for it. But rather than C++ I'd go for some other modern language (insert large list here).
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
Yes... You can do OOP in C. With todays toolchains, libraries and techniques, C is more viable than a lot of people give credit for.
I personally have always disliked C++, and I know I'm not the only one. I've been OK with Obj-C, but... It is a bit eccentric, and it's probably on the way out with Apple now promoting Swift.
C, on the other hand, is eternal and evergreen.
Apple has made it clear their development future lies in Swift, not Objective-C.
That means you're choosing between a popular, well supported language and a dead end.
The choice should be obvious.
They've done no such thing. The biggest writer and maintainer of Obj-C code is Apple. They're sitting on a huge source base they'll continue developing on. Please link me to where Apple has said Swift is replacing Obj-C. Because they haven't. And they've said the opposite many times. Everything I've read/heard is that Obj-C will continue to be a first class language on iOS and Mac (with Swift and Obj-C both being considered first class languages.) You can have more than one language on a single platform. Shocking, I know.
Not to mention, for such a dead end, Apple's still writing a lot of new Obj-C. The iWatch OS (what runs on the watch itself) is Obj-C. Apple has not shipped a single API on Mac or iOS written in Swift. Not one. So it makes zero sense that Apple would consider Obj-C a dead language, and yet continue to write source they'll have to maintain for years in it. And if you think Apple is going to rewrite the millions of lines of Obj-C in Mac OS X and iOS in Swift, you really don't understand software engineering very well.
Another problem is that Swift is missing basic language features. Obj-C can link to C++ code. Swift? Nope. That alone means Swift can't replace Obj-C code. Everyone has C++ code they need to link to. Apple has C++ they need to link to in their own APIs. So does Adobe. Microsoft. And they'll probably fix it in the future. But you can't even approach suggesting Swift is going to replace Obj-C with a straight face until that is fixed.
Now look, I'm not trying to argue against Swift here. It's a valuable language to use and learn. This isn't a desperate "Obj-C forever!" post. But if you think Obj-C is going anywhere in the next decade or two... It can't. Apple will continue upgrading it, and continue supporting it, or else they're going to end up putting themselves in a corner where they can't even maintain their own software. That's not opinion, that's realism. It's knowing when a tool is right for a problem. And we're nowhere near Swift even being able to entirely replace Obj-C in usage.
Heck, the last Xcode beta even shipped with some upgrades to Obj-C. So I don't even need to argue that point. It's not a question of if Apple will keep advancing Obj-C. They are.
I'm not happy with any language that's available, but that's because I have interests in hard to program stuff.
I have lots and lots of experience with C++, but I wouldn't recommend it, except as a form of torture. Java too, is gets in your way far too often, though it's better than C++.
To me, objects are a way of organizing APIs, so I DO like OO...
What to write it in depends on what features you need. Do you need it to be fast? How fast? Do you need to take advantage of multiple processors? Do you need to share data between them?
Is programmer time more important than running speed?
Is reliability more important than programming time?
One system I'm enjoying these days, though it's far from perfect is Lua, through the amazingly good trace compiler/jit Luajit.
It is every inefficient in terms of memory. It doesn't support multiple threads. It doesn't even have standard object system, though it's not hard to implement a prototype based one in it... But it's kind of like programming in Self or Ruby with the complexity knob turned all the way down.
It also has the advantage of running on everything. There's even an ARM version of the JIT.
If you don't need the speed, Python doesn't look too bad and has lots of libraries.
If you need something that can be data-center-sized then find a .net language or java... There's a lot of choices under .net and it probably scales the best. Depending on what I was trying to do, I might use F# or ClojureCLR or IronPython...
The best OO language that time forgot is Dylan. I'm disappointed that Apple never really finished developing it.
I have been mulling similar question for myself for some time. i.e. where should I spend my limited hobby time: learning Obj-C or C++?
In the last few months Rust has caught my attention. Even then it's not yet at verstion 1 (at time of writing its at alpha-1), I really like the concept and what they are try to achieve with the language.
My comment will probably be burried, but if you do read it, spend a few minutes wondering around their web site. For exmaple their 30 minute introduction to Rust.