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This article reads a lot more like "In praise of Cocoa" than anything specific to Objective-C, the language. The author clearly sees them as one beast when they

This article reads a lot more like "In praise of Cocoa" than anything specific to Objective-C, the language. The author clearly sees them as one beast when they are quite separate. It's somewhat reasonable to lump them together since developing anything in Objective-C without Cocoa is generally prohibitively difficult given the lack of other library support. That said, nothing he's really talking about has to do with the language itself (save, perhaps, for the performance characteristics closer to C++ than Java). He's more praising what C# developers always praise: he's basically describing it as "Java done better than Java."

natesm 15y ago
They're hardly separate things at this point, @autoreleasepool? The new @[] and @{} constructors for NSArray and NSDictionary? ARC enforces retain/release/autorelease, which are NSObject protocol methods. NSString isn't "part of" Objective-C, but the language has had special literals for a very long time. I guess that isn't the entirety of Cocoa, but Objective-C and Foundation are very linked now.
- Turing_Machine 15y ago
  There's GNUStep, though I don't really know how far away from the Cocoa moving target it is at the moment. http://www.gnustep.org/ http://www.gnustep.org/
  - stefanu 15y ago
    There is quite a lot implemented, they are trying to follow (as much as reousrces allow). Btw. since February there is GNUstep repository on github: https://github.com/gnustep https://github.com/gnustep (base = Foundation, gui = AppKit)
- bcrescimanno 15y ago
  FWIW, I was reading the article as someone with no Objective-C experience (outside of skimming a few references) and I could tell he was talking about a library rather than a language. It'd almost be analogous to writing an article titled "In praise of Javascript" and proceed to talk about jQuery functionality. jQuery has certainly had an impact on the Javascript language; but the two (despite popular opinion to the contrary) remain entirely distinct.
  - natesm 15y ago
    > but the two (despite popular opinion to the contrary) remain entirely distinct. This isn't the case in Objective-C though. @"foo" is an instance of the NSString class, which is a part of the Foundation library. However, it has its own special syntax. Now, Apple is adding @[] and @{}, which are NSArray and NSDictionary instances.
batista 15y ago
>This article reads a lot more like "In praise of Cocoa" than anything specific to Objective-C, the language. The author clearly sees them as one beast when they are quite separate. How so? Since, 99% of Objectice-C development includes Cocoa. It's like arguing C++ and STL are separate. Might be true, but it's a rather pedantic distinction.

natesm 15y ago

They're hardly separate things at this point, @autoreleasepool? The new @[] and @{} constructors for NSArray and NSDictionary? ARC enforces retain/release/autorelease, which are NSObject protocol methods. NSString isn't "part of" Objective-C, but the language has had special literals for a very long time. I guess that isn't the entirety of Cocoa, but Objective-C and Foundation are very linked now.

Turing_Machine 15y ago
There's GNUStep, though I don't really know how far away from the Cocoa moving target it is at the moment. http://www.gnustep.org/ http://www.gnustep.org/
- stefanu 15y ago
  There is quite a lot implemented, they are trying to follow (as much as reousrces allow). Btw. since February there is GNUstep repository on github: https://github.com/gnustep https://github.com/gnustep (base = Foundation, gui = AppKit)
bcrescimanno 15y ago
FWIW, I was reading the article as someone with no Objective-C experience (outside of skimming a few references) and I could tell he was talking about a library rather than a language. It'd almost be analogous to writing an article titled "In praise of Javascript" and proceed to talk about jQuery functionality. jQuery has certainly had an impact on the Javascript language; but the two (despite popular opinion to the contrary) remain entirely distinct.
- natesm 15y ago
  > but the two (despite popular opinion to the contrary) remain entirely distinct. This isn't the case in Objective-C though. @"foo" is an instance of the NSString class, which is a part of the Foundation library. However, it has its own special syntax. Now, Apple is adding @[] and @{}, which are NSArray and NSDictionary instances.

batista 15y ago

>This article reads a lot more like "In praise of Cocoa" than anything specific to Objective-C, the language. The author clearly sees them as one beast when they are quite separate. How so? Since, 99% of Objectice-C development includes Cocoa. It's like arguing C++ and STL are separate. Might be true, but it's a rather pedantic distinction.