Re: [GD-General] Eiffel

[Thatcher U. <tu...@tu...>]

On Dec 19, 2001 at 03:32 -0800, Brian Hook wrote:
> 
> I sort of disagree -- you need a languager AND an environment.
> Objective-C is a fine language, but what really puts it over the top is
> Cocoa and Interface Builder (and the other libraries like Core
> Foundation and AppKit).  Interface Builder is such a seamless
> integration into the development process (unlike AppWizard) that it
> pretty much has to be considered part of the language.
> 
> The best language in the world is worthless (to me) if it doesn't have
> supporting tools and environments that really target the language's
> strengths.  For example, the notion of a "generic environment" a la
> Emacs (or Visual Studio) is slowly going to become an arcane notion
> because separating the language from the build and analysis process will
> become less tenable.

Well, I think this is another way of expressing Kent's point about the
right tool for the job.  If you want to make a nice GUI in a hurry,
then Cocoa sounds like a really good tool.  If you want to glue a
webcam to a webpage in a customized way (something I fiddled with the
other day), thank god for Perl and various GNU/open-source stuff.  If
you want to make great-looking browser games, Flash w/ Actionscript
looks like a great tool (here's a set of great examples:
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/ ).  If you want to write an OS
kernel, then it's hard to argue with C.

-- 
Thatcher Ulrich <tu...@tu...>
http://tulrich.com