Obj-C was RE: Paradigms was [GD-General] Compile times/scripting/oop

[Brian H. <bri...@py...>]

> I've recently learned Obj-C, and completely agree with you, 
> it's a great language. So, why don't use it as primary 
> language? You can still do all the low level code in C and in 
> the game code the small overhead of the messaging is acceptable.

If my target audience was the Mac, I'd use it in a heartbeat.  The main
reasons why it's not practical for me is that I have to give up too many
good tools in order to use it.  Sad, but true -- the productivity
increase from having a great language aren't made up for by the lack of
a quality IDE, quality build tools, quality debugger, etc.

Also, it's not a "ratified" language, so there are numerous variants of
it floating around.  GCC's is the default, but I think Apple doesn't
even use GCC, they fork their own copy and then make their own versions.

Finally, one of the reasons that Obj-C is so powerful is that the
toolkits available for it are incredible.  Anyone who has developed a
GUI app using Interface Builder and Cocoa/AppKit knows exactly what I'm
talking about.  It's actually FUN putting together an interface.  I'm in
awe of how much better it is for GUI development compared to something
like Java/Swing or (ick) MFC/C++.  Night and day.  GNUStep is supposedly
coming along "pretty well", but it still has some key differences from
Cocoa, and right now I think Apple is disinclined to make Cocoa/Obj-C
available off of OS X because that's one of the few competitive
advantages they can tout to developers (at least, to developers willing
to learn it).

My first OpenGL app under Cocoa took a few hours to get up and running,
and that's with me simultaneously learning Cocoa, the Cocoa OpenGL
class, Objective-C and an entirely new development environment
(ProjectBuilder).

I can now prototype and throw together an OpenGL app under Obj-C, with
full toolbars, etc. in a matter of 30 minuets.  For hacking
visualization apps and tools, nothing comes close.

> Are there any games written in Obj-C?

I've actually heard that several MUDs have been written in Obj-C because
it lends itself so well to that type of universe.  Because of Obj-C's
ability to dynamically load not just code but entirely new classes off
disk, you can keep a MUD up and running and take down/replace/augment
selective parts of it.

Brian