
Interview with Brad Cox, the Man Behind Objective-C - mpweiher
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.25/25.07/2507RoadtoCode-BradCoxInterview/index.html
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supercoder
It almost certainly doesn't get recognised enough the influence this guy has
had on the world by creating a technology that has influenced the lives of
hundreds of millions.

The tools developers use have a big impact on the resulting software and so
it's crazy to think where we'd be if Obj-C hadn't been created and hadn't
enabled the iPhone etc.

~~~
Mikeb85
The iPhone would probably just be using C++ if not for Obj-C. And if not C++,
then maybe C or Pascal. And maybe in some alternate universe everyone is still
using Fortran, or maybe Ada, etc...

There are plenty of efficient systems languages out there...

~~~
yarrel
There are, but Objective-C was unique at the time in terms of being object-
oriented _and_ late binding _and_ compiled to machine code _and_ interfacing
efficiently with C code.

IMO these features made it more productive than C++ or Pascal for developing
GUI-based applications.

~~~
blub
Unless we're talking about ancient versions of C++, those productivity
advantages of Objective-C are mostly a myth which I have yet to see any
argumentation for.

The whole point is moot though, because Swift is the future. It's quite
amusing seeing the Objective-C community trying to reconcile their irrational
love of the language with the reality that Apple communicated - it's a
disadvantage for the platform, keeping developers away with its unusual
syntax, lack of safety and overcomplicated paradigms.

~~~
gchpaco
Interface Builder was impossible in the C++s of the day. It is merely
extremely difficult today. Remember that what IB did was build the UI _using
the actual elements_ , so you could play with it even without the logic hooked
up, serialized that entire object tree, and then deserialized it at runtime.

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simscitizen
The man behind Objective-C these days (and for the past decade plus) is this
guy:
[http://www.sealiesoftware.com/blog/](http://www.sealiesoftware.com/blog/).

------
e12e
Heh...:

"DD: Could you have used Smalltalk directly or were in an environment where C
was the language you had to interoperate with?

BC (18:12): Xerox was busy shooting themselves in the foot at the time. They
wouldn't sell it to me, or to anybody. The were into this "We're a research
lab and that's a research toy and go away.""

~~~
pjmlp
There are a few videos and reports from Xerox people on how their management
managed to fail to make Smalltalk and Lisp Machines mainstream.

Sadly AT&T was more effective bringing their research into mainstream.

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gojomo
More on another of Cox's signature ideas – about which he wrote a book[1] –
'Superdistribution':

[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/superdis_pr.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/superdis_pr.html)

The gist is to stop charging for software (including subcomponents like shared
libraries and reusable objects) per copy, or by copy-based-licensing.

Instead, charge (tiny amounts) per use. Theoretically, this could cure
underinvestment in the creation of certain shared components, or in software
quality/reliability. It's somewhat related to the idea from Ted Nelson that
hypertext transclusion could also route automatic incremental reuse payments.

Of course, enforcing the metering can be hard. (You need either DRM or
cheerful voluntary compliance.) And all the usual issues with micropayments
apply. But it's an interesting idea and the currently-vibrant in-app/in-game
models resemble it in some respects.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Superdistribution-Objects-Property-
Ele...](http://www.amazon.com/Superdistribution-Objects-Property-Electronic-
Frontier/dp/0201502089)

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tcopeland
I remember Brad giving the keynote at RubyConf 2004. At that time he was
pretty excited about micropayments, so after a short blurb on ObjC he mostly
talked about that.

I don't think micropayments ever really worked out, but he was obviously
putting a lot of energy into figuring out how it could be done and it was
interesting to hear him hold forth.

~~~
rasz_pl
>I don't think micropayments ever really worked out

becaue no one ever implements MICROpayments, we always end up with
macropayments. Have you seen a program or a game that asks you for 0.5 cents
for a hat? or 0.001cents for a bullet?

The closest I could find is world of tanks, where you can buy bullets for
0.006 Euro for the smallest tanks, and 0.06 Euro for the most expensive ones.
Hats (camo patterns, inscriptions) still cost ~ 1 euro each tho.

Most games simply milk you $5 and up per "micro"payment.

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pedrow
When was this article written? I can see it refers to Snow Leopard as the
latest (or possibly upcoming) version of OSX, so 2009?

~~~
ddribin
It was published in the July 2009 print issue of MacTech. I interviewed him in
April.

------
faragon
Any Linus rant about how Objective-C sucks? :-)

~~~
melling
Brad Cox had a huge impact on the world because he helped author a computer
language used by millions. Most of us here haven't come close. We should have
a test before we can post to the internet. Here's the first thing you need to
understand.

[http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html](http://www.theodore-
roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html)

~~~
dethstar
This analogy doesn't work on a lot of cases. Lets say you're served a plate
full of something you find disgusting. How could you critic it? You're not the
cook.

Now, you could say this case is not similar since it is "used by millions",
but a lot of systems that are _universally_ agreed to be bad are used by
millions. Hence why a lot of people in HN are trying to "disrupt" said space
(or market).

TL;DR Using what you're given to work with and being content with what you're
using are two different things and should not measure the quality of said
thing.

PS.- This is not to say I believe Brad Cox is bad or Objective C is bad, I
haven't used it ever. Is just the "if you can't do it don't criticize it"
mentality I'm not for.

~~~
mwfunk
I don't interpret the quote as meaning "if you can't do it don't criticize
it". It's just saying that it's much more noble to attempt to do hard things
and fail, than it is to do nothing but take cheap shots at those who are
trying.

In this context I think it was more a reflection on the cheapness of the shot
and what it says about the people making the cheap shots. There's a big
difference between honest criticism and "your thing sucks, haha!"

