

Why did Objective-C never catch on? (Ask Slashdot, Aug 2000) - coob
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/00/08/09/1858219/what-did-objective-c-do-wrong

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Tichy
Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if
they weren't forced by Apple?

One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many
platforms, is that the case?

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Moschops
We've been using it for over a decade (small part of a major defense company).
We do not (and have never) targeted any Apple operating systems.

~~~
yardie
Could you give some background on how that decision was made? I've only seen
objC used in only a few situations. Usually academic and businesses that
bought into NEXT computers. I've met a few neck beards who used it in Linux on
GNUStep projects.

Outside of Apple and the few examples I haven't met anyone who has decided
that objC was an obvious choice.

~~~
mturmon
objC was common for a time in the NYC financial industry, because of in-house
use of NeXT computers.

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stcredzero
Another datapoint for my theory for how Slashdot worked: the usual mob made
enough actual experts mad enough to comment and other annoyed clueful people
moderated those comments up.

From what I have seen, Apple succeeds in part because they have a corporate
culture that fosters good OO and good software architecture. Most companies
through the early 2000's didn't have enough BS filtering capability to
accomplish this. (Only the top 10% to 25% of shops had that, I would guess.)

Add to that technical capability, the actual ability to market and an
understanding of UX/design, and you start to understand how they can execute
so well.

~~~
canthonytucci
"Another datapoint for my theory for how Slashdot worked: the usual mob made
enough actual experts mad enough to comment and other annoyed clueful people
moderated those comments up."

This made my day.

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cicero
I heard about Objective-C before C++. The big complaint I remember about
Objective-C was that it had a very different syntax for the O-O parts. When
C++ came along, it was seen as having O-O more integrated into the C language.
Also, I think Borland's Turbo C++ was a big boost for the language, which
probably led to Microsoft adopting C++ rather than Objective-C. Also, I think
the strong type checking and fast polymorphic dispatch were attractive
features.

Another thing to remember is that compilers were expensive back then. You
couldn't just download a language from the web and try it out. Trying a new
language mean an investment of several hundred dollars, and so you tended to
just stick with your first choice. Turbo C++ was probably the first O-O
language available for less than $100, so that became many people's
introduction to O-O.

I found C++ to be complex and difficult, but I thought that was just the price
to pay for O-O. Later, when I learned Smalltalk, I realized that was not
necessarily the case.

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danielamitay
Stats on popularity from TIOBE:

[http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....](http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html)
(Obj-C now the 5th most popular and quickly rising)

~~~
reidrac
I always wondered if that popularity is tied to Apple devices. I mean... are
there projects using Obj-C out of an Apple context?

Other sources:

<http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/> <https://github.com/languages>

~~~
0x09
> are there projects using Obj-C out of an Apple context?

It's the same as 12 years ago: just GNUStep and things in the GNUStep halo
like Étoilé. Sony started a project to put GNUStep on mobile (SNAP) a few
years ago and promptly dropped it.

> I always wondered if that popularity is tied to Apple devices.

There's no doubt about that.

~~~
ralfd
SNAP was a very strange story. I tried to google what happened and on 25 Nov
2010 all reported "big news: Sony is using Obj-C with GNUstep!" and two days
later on the 27th "Sony killed SNAP!"

[http://blog.deliciousrobots.com/2010/11/27/sonys-changes-
to-...](http://blog.deliciousrobots.com/2010/11/27/sonys-changes-to-gnustep-
gui-library-adding-touch/)

~~~
0x09
The word on the street was that they got skittish about stepping on Apple's
IP. Which is a shame, because GNUStep doesn't get nearly enough attention.

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zerostar07
The (non)-success of GNUStep speaks volumes about how popular the ObjC library
would be if it weren't for the monetary incentive provided by Apple.

~~~
Argorak
I think the non-success of GNUStep is rooted in another problem: it is a beast
to get running. I tried to get a GNUStep toolchain on my Mac when I started
ObjC. No dice. Its really _hard_ to start. If GNUStep was as easy to start
with like, say, QT, it would be much better.

~~~
zerostar07
You can look at that from another angle: Nobody cared enough to make decent
tools for GNUStep, while many care about other languages (c, c++, java,
python, ruby etc). Linux programmers are keen to copy UI effects from Apple,
but so far they seem to keep away from its programming language

~~~
Argorak
Considering the work that ran into GNUStep, its window management, the
libraries, etc., I think its the typical programmers oversight: it runs for
me, why should I care to run it elsewhere?

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ralfd
Cool link and a flashback to 12 years ago. Who would have known?

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crusso
Bah, I've used Obj-C for a couple of multi-month stints just because I
_wanted_ to like it. I tried my hardest to get into the groove of it, but I
just find it to be a really weak way to add objects on top of C.

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zokier
Does the story really have just 15 comments or is /. just bugged? Too bad that
threading of legacy stories seems borked.

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sohn
Unlike most of you Hacker News readers may think, Apple devices are not common
out there (yes, I know, there are iPhones - yet they're too expensive and most
of their applications are NOT being coded in Obj-C), so Obj-C didn't catch on
yet.

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peteretep
6 months ago, there were 250 million iOS devices had been sold - that's iOS
only, no Macs. I make that one for every 28 human beings on this planet. What
number would tip this so that you considered Apple devices to be common?

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VMG
To be fair, many people own multiple iOS devices.

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sambeau
A small number of geeks and a fair number of _households_ own more than one
iOS device. Most people don't.

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estel
Perhaps, but equally most iPad owners seem to also own an iPhone.

